


LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

dijHp, ®u{H|rig^t Ifru 

Shelf .-4.1^-5* 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 








fy 



Sajl. L^4^ 



With Compliments of the 



l*&u&^ 



Commissioner. 




w^^ 











£ 



f./J/rl 






Cut tLu* U/rts-' 



RL&'S F^IR 



Jamaica at 



3 



eaR© 



AN ACCOUNT DESCRIPTIVE OF THE 
COLONY OF JAtvjAICPv, 

WITH HISTORICAL AND OTH.ER APPENDICES. 



Compiled under the direction of w c 

Lt. Col, the HoH' C JrWARD, C. ^. G. 



Honorary Commissioner for Jarqaica. 




New York: 
Win. J. Pell, Printer, 92 John Street. 

1893. 






COPYRIGHT BY 

CHARLES J. WARD, 
1893. 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 



*> 



^ 

,* 



^espeelfczlly Dedicated 

to 

Kis Sxeelleney §ir fienry A. glaive, ^. Q. M. ©*., 

©overnor of Jamaica.. 

-*3 ==~EEE=©EEEEEE=== «- 



G^5M*@^» 



-43 




^S>']f(5^ 



So ?£is Sxcellency Sir 16. 64. fflake ; 76. *$. M. £. ; 

Sir : 

Jn ashing you to permit me to associate your name with this 

little hand=boolo which J have had prepared for free distribution at the 

Chicago Sxhibition ; J am prompted by the recollection of what you have 

done ; so zealously and at the same time so unassumingly ; in giving promi= 

nence to Jamaica as a possibly unequalled health resort and as a profitable 

field of settlement for would=be British Colonists or °United States citizens ; 

seeking a home under the British flag. 

With politics J ; as Commissioner for c famaica ; have nothing to do ? 

but J think J am justified in availing myself, on behalf of my fellow = 

colonists ; of this opportunity of expressing to °lfour Sxcellency the gratification 

felt ly all Jamaicans at the sincere and hearty manner in which you 

have interested yourself in all that interests us ; in which you have cordially 

thrown yourself into our lives and become one of us in your endeavours. 

since your assumption of the government of this colony ; to do all in your 

power to promote ; socially ; morally and commercially ; the best and highest 

interests of this ancient and loyal colony. 

J am ; Sir ; 

Charles J. Ward. 

76ingston ; c famaica ; 

Jtarch ; 7893. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGES 

Descriptive Account of the Parishes of Jamaica, ... 7 

Columbus and Jamaica, 43, 

Later History, 52 

Sport in Jamaica, 66 

The Blue Mountains of Jamaica, 74 

The Climate of Jamaica, 80 

Statistical Information About Jamaica, 90 



DESCRIPTIVE ACCOUNT OF THE PARISHES 
OF JAMAICA. 



'"pHE Island of Jamaica is essentially the most important of the British West Indian 
*■ Islands, not only on account of its greater size, but also by reason of the varied 
beauty of its scenery, the capabilities of its soil and the healthiness of its climate. 
Less than a century ago, large fortunes were made in Jamaica and money was spent 
wildly, lavishly and often riotously. Subsequently, after the emancipation of the 
slaves, it settled down into quietude, and there were those who spoke of its palmy 
days as past, never to return. Lately, however, Jamaica has undoubtedly experienced 
a revival of popularity and of prosperity, a result largely due to intelligent enterprise 
and industry. It is not intended that these pages shall be filled to any extent with 
statistics, but, as evidence of the truth of the statement made in the previous sentence, 
it may be noted that the value of the fruit exported in 1879 was ^40, 166, and in 1892 
it had risen to ,£315,000. So, too, with the educational and social condition of the 
people, much as there is still to be done and to be undone, to be learned and to be 
unlearned, there are on all sides, plainly visible, signs of progress and advancement, 
healthy signs, too, of a progress which has only just begun, but which will not stop 
until it reaches permanent prosperity. Another change, too, has come over Jamaica. 
It has long since ceased to be a yellow-fever bed and the favoured camping-ground of 
malaria. The growth of medical knowledge, and of sanitary science, and the appli- 
cation of common sense, and the lessons of daily experience have proved that life may 
be lived healthily, usefully, actively, enjoyably in Jamaica as well as in any other part 
of the world. There is work that can be done by those who can, or must work. 
There is enough sport to attract the sportsman, who is not ambitious after big game. 
There is a wealth of flowers, ferns and foliage, of tropical and sub-tropical vegetable 
life. If art has done little, nature has done much to allure and attract those 
who seek ease and enjoyment. The genial warmth of the plains will prolong 
the life of the consumptive, while on the hills can be found air as bracing and 
breezes as invigorating as any that can be found in more well-known health 
resorts. 

The visitor to Jamaica sees much that is externally beautiful and historically 
interesting before the ship which brings him to this fair Island is anchored 
alongside one of the wharves, which line the northern shore oi Kingston harbour. 
From the time when the Blue Mountain range comes into view and the steamer 
passes the Morant Point Lighthouse, the traveller, within one or two weeks o\ 
snow and damp, and warm overcoats and fur lined gloves, can lounge on deck 
and feast his eyes on a succession of scenes as picturesque and as dazzling in 



8 



PARISHES OF JAMAICA. 



their beauty and varied charms as are to be seen anywhere in or out of the 
tropics. There are the rock-bound shore, the level beach, plains running down 
to the sea, gloomy lagoons and thick jungles of vegetable growth, broken here 
and there by river courses or dry ravines, while in the back-ground are to be 
seen mountains and hills differing in height from the modest hillock by the 
beach to the stately Blue Mountain Peak in the distant centre of the Island, 
the whole covered either with careful cultivation or with the reckless luxuriance 
of tropical life. Passing Morant Bay, the scene of the unhappy disturbances in 
1865, he catches a glimpse of sugar estates, notable among which is that of 
Albion, with its waving sugar-canes, its feathery palms, its little Coolie colony ; 



T'-"' ■ " 




A BIT OF KINGSTON HARBOUR. 



of the quaintly-shaped Sugar-Loaf Hill, whence a pilot is wont to come on 
board ; of the remains of an old Spanish fortification, after which he soon 
reaches the narrow neck of land which runs for some four or five miles parallel to 
the shore on which stan ds the City of Kingston and which makes the Kingston 
harbour one of the safest and most splendid in the world. About midway on 
this neck of land — called the Palisades or Palisadoes — is Plumb Point Lighthouse 
and at the western extremity is situated the town of Port Royal. Rounding Port 
Royal the steamer sails across the harbour and pulls up alongside its wharf in 
Kingston. 

The City of Kingston has had an exciting and eventful history. Many of 
the survivors of the 1692 earthquake at Port Royal settled on the sea-board of the 
Liguanea plain, and Kingston is the gradual out-growth of that settlement. Its 



PARISHES OF JAMAICA. 9 

progress, though slow at first, was accelerated in 1703 by a fire which completely 
destroyed the revived Port Royal and which drove many of the unfortunate 
inhabitants of the latter town to try their fortunes in Kingston. 

If, however, Kingston owed its origin to the misfortunes of Port Royal, it has 
not been without its own share of troubles. Earthquake and hurricane have 
done their dire work at times, but fire has been Kingston's most persistent foe, 
the years 1780, 1843, 1862 and 1882 being the most calamitous. Bearing in mind 
then that for more than half a century — we may almost say for more than a 
century — no generation of Kingstonians has been without its recollection of 
devastating, destructive fire, it is not to be wondered at that the city, as it now 
stands, presents few features of architectural interest and contains few buildings 
of magnificent proportions. The city is constructed after the chess-board fashion 
of modern cities, the streets and lanes being parallel, or at right angles, 
to each other. In the centre of the city is the Kingston Parade Garden, a 
square of ten acres, neatly, but somewhat profuselv, laid out with shade-giving 
and ornamental trees, many of which are interesting^ to botanists, and novel and 
curious to visitors from colder climes. The Gardens contain fountains and tanks 
where may be seen choice specimens of water lilies and other aquatic plants, and 
they are tolerably supplied with lounging seats. 

Architecturally, the most striking building in Kingston is the Mico Institution. 
The story of the foundation of this Institution takes us back into the regions of 
romance two hundred years ago. There lived at that time a widow lady, whose 
husband, Sir Samuel Mico, had been Lord Mayor of London. A niece of Lady 
Mico lived with her as companion and was engaged to be married to a nephew 
of Lady Mico, who had promised to settle ^2,000 on the couple when they were 
married. The marriage, however, did not take place, the lady preferring to run 
away with a military officer, and the ^2,000 remaining in Lady Mico's posses- 
sion. While these events were going on and some years afterwards, a good deal 
of excitement and indignation prevailed in England at the treatment which Christian 
captives received at the hands of Algerian pirates who kidnapped them and made 
them work as slaves. Among the sympathisers with these unhappy persons was 
Lady Mico, in whose will may be read the following words — k < Whare as I gave 
Samuel Mico two thousand pounde when he had married one of my neeces but 
not performeing it I give one of the said thousand pounde to redeeme poor slaves 
which I would have put out as my executrix think be the best for a yearly 
revenew to redeem some yearly." Before this bequest was available by Lady 
Mico's death, Algerian piracy had been suppressed and its victims had been 
released. The money was invested by Order of the Court of Chancery in Tree 
hold property in London which so increased in value that in 1834 the Trust 
was worth more than ^120,000. Suggestions as to the appropriation o( this 
money had been made from time to time, but nothing was done until in the 
year above-mentioned (1834,) at the instigation oi Sir Thomas Ko\\ell Buxton, it 
was decided that it might be legitimately devoted to the Christian undenonii 
national education of West Indian children. The Mieo Institution in Hanover 
Street, Kingston, is one of the consequences of this decision. It eonsists of a 



IO PARISHES OF JAMAICA. 

handsome and substantial block of buildings, containing a Training College for 
upwards of fifty resident students in preparation for the profession of school- 
master and a day-school for 300 pupils. 

The Kingston Markets are well worth a visit. Here may be seen turtle, meat, 
poultry, fish, many of which are remarkable for the startling beauty of their colour, 
together with heaps of tropical fruits and vegetables, brought down overnight, 
mainly on women's heads, from distant parts of the Island. The noise, the 
bustle, the clatter of tongues, the seeming confusion, the spontaneous out-flow of 
good nature all combine to make a visit to a Kingston market, especially on 
Saturday morning, a sight and a scene which will not readily be forgotten. Of 
the two Kingston markets the Victoria Market is situated at the southern end 




of King Street, and may be reached by tram from almost any part of the city. 
It is a handsome and spacious building, conveniently arranged both for purchasers 
and for sellers, within a few yards of the public landing-place on the North- 
shore of the harbour, and therefore exposed to the refreshing sea-breeze which 
cools the heated town. The other market is to the west of the Parade Gardens, 
and was built in 1887, and called the Jubilee Market in commemoration of the 
fiftieth year of the Queen's Accession. 

The Court House in Harbour Street, though externally unlovely, is not without 
its points of interest. Persons accustomed to the small and badly-ventilated English 
Courts will be pleasantly surprised at the dimensions of the Jamaica Court-room. On 
the walls of the Court House are two striking and well-executed paintings of Sir Joshua 
Rowe and Sir Bryan Edwards, two former dispensers of justice in the colony. 



PARISHES OF JAMAICA. II 

In the same building are situated the offices of the Registrar and the Supreme 
Court Library, together with the offices assigned to other officials connected with the 
administration of the law. The Library, in addition to a valuable collection of law 
reports, contains several documents of more than ordinary interest. Many ancient 
documents were destroyed by the earthquake of 1692, after which date the higher 
Courts were held either at Spanish Town or at Kingston. There is, however, at the 
Court House the register of the Chancellor's Court at Port Royal containing an entry 
to the effect that news having reached Port Royal announcing the death of His Majesty, 
Charles II., and the accession to the throne of His Royal Highness the Duke of York 
and Albany under the name of James II., the Court would adjourn for two weeks. But 
the greatest curiosity of all is a bundle of papers which have a history stranger than the 
most far-fetched conception of the most imaginative writer of fiction. In the year 1799 
the brig " Nancy " was captured by the British cutter "Sparrow" and brought into 
Port Royal, the officers and crew being on trial in the Kingston Vice-Admiralty Court 
for piracy. No papers were. found on the " Nancy," and for want of evidence which 
they would have supplied, the prosecution was on the point of breaking down. About 
this time the man-of-war " Abergavenny " was anchored off Jacmel, in Haiti, and the 
officers were serving their country by fishing for sharks. One of these sharks being 
caught, the sailors cut it open and in its belly was found a bundle of papers. Sailing 
for Kingston soon after, the bundle of papers was sent on shore by the captain who 
knew nothing of the capture of the "Nancy." They arrived while the trial for 
piracy was going on, and on investigation, were found to be the missing papers 
of the "Nancy," which had been thrown overboard to prevent their being used, 
and which were presented in Court in time to be used for securing the convic- 
tion and subsequent hanging of the crew of pirates. 

The Institute of Jamaica in East Street is both a Museum and a Library. 
Unfortunately, it is too small for its purposes, and consequently its usefulness 
is somewhat interfered with. The Library is well stocked with standard books 
and contains a really valuable collection of books and pamphlets bearing on 
the history and natural productions of the West Indies. A Portrait Gallery 
of Jamaican celebrities is being gradually made complete, and lectures on 
literary and scientific subjects are frequently given. Like the Library, the 
Museum suffers from its insufficient size. It contains, however, many objects o\ 
much interest which well repay inspection. Among these is a collection illustra- 
tive of the geology of the Island, made by the officers of the Geological Survey 
between the years i860 and 1866. A collection of specimens of Jamaica woods 
fills one small room. The herbarium contains complete sets of the ferns, the 
grasses, the sedges, and the orchids of Jamaica. There are also well-preserved 
specimens of the shells, fishes, birds, reptiles and insects of the island. The 
archaeological section contains curious relics of the Indian population disturbed by 
Columbus and exterminated by the Spaniards, the bell of the old Port Royal 
Church submerged by the 1692 earthquake and subsequently rescued by divers, 
and also one of the old iron cages in which in days gone by criminals were 
enclosed and suspended on trees to die of exposure and starvation. 

The Women's Self-help Society, apart from the philanthropic purposes for 



12 



PARISHES OF JAMAICA. 



which it was founded and which it serves, is well stocked with fans, d'oyleys 
and other articles gracefully designed and carefully executed. Its premises in 
Church ^are conveniently situated and may reasonably be considered a small 
museum of works of art and taste. 

Various religious sects have their places of worship in Kingston, but none 
of them claim to be grand or great specimens of ecclesiastical architecture. 
The Presbyterian Kirk in East Queen Street and the Wesleyan Chapel adjoin- 
ing it, and known as the Coke Chapel, in memory of Dr. Coke, an eminent 
and honored Methodist missionary a hundred years ago, are perhaps the best 
and most complete to look at. The Roman Catholic Church, or pro -cathedral, 
is undergoing enlargement and, when finished, will be a handsome structure. 



I';. . 

^ Atrip' Hp^Tf ~iy *. '• 




Egpsg&fe^BTpi 


BpW^^^gk ^ 


f^mmmm 


f 







KINGSTON FROM 



Almost opposite to this last-named building is a striking and ornate Jewish 
Synagogue. The first place, however, must be given to the old Kingston 
Parish Church, the bright and cheerful interior of which atones for its some- 
what sombre exterior. Within the walls of the Parish Church and near the 
communion rails, are buried all that could perish of Admiral Benbow, who 
died in Kingston in the year 1702. 

Until within the last few years, the insufficiency of hotel and boarding 
accommodation was a great drawback in Kingston. Any ground for complaint 
of this sort has to a great extent been removed. In addition to numerous 
boarding-houses, most of which are clean and comfortable, and the most promi- 
nent of which is at Park Lodge and at Streadwick's Marine Gardens, there 



PARISHES OF JAMAICA. 1 3 

are substantially-built and fully-equipped hotels at Myrtle Bank, on the northern 
shore of the Harbour, in Heywood Street in the centre of the city, and at 
Constant Spring in the neighbouring parish of St. Andrew, about six miles 
from Kingston, with which it is connected by tram-lines. Both Myrtle Bank 
and Constant Spring hotels are spacious and well-conducted establishments. The 
former is almost in the centre of the business portion of Kingston, while the 
latter is removed from the heat and glare of the streets of a tropical town. 
In addition to the ordinary conveniences of hotels, both Myrtle Bank and 
Constant Spring are provided with large swimming baths. 

Kingston also possesses its theatre, its race course, its clubs, some con- 
nected with sport, others existing for social purposes. The Jamaica Club in 
Hanover Street always welcomes „ strangers heartily ; the Royal Jamaica Yacht 
Club has commodious quarters in the east of the city ; the Society of Agricul- 
ture and Commerce has its home in Harbour Street, and its table is well 
supplied with the latest English and American papers. 

The small, but once wealthy and important town of Port Royal stands at 
the Western extremity of the narrow peninsula, called the Palisades which 
separates Kingston Harbour from the open sea. Looking at Port Royal at the 
present day it is difficult to understand how it could once have deserved the 
description of being "the finest town in the West Indies and at that time 
the richest spot in the universe." Earthquake, fire and storm have done their 
work on the town and more peaceful ways and customs have put a stop to 
buccaneering and other means of acquiring unlawful wealth. The greatest calamity 
which has ever befallen Port Royal was the earthquake on the 17th of June, 
1692, which submerged the greater part of the town. This dreadful event has 
often been described, or perhaps we should say that a description of it written 
by the clergyman at Port Royal, who was among the survivors of the earth- 
quake, has often been quoted and adapted by subsequent historians and writers. 
The following extract from the Hand-book of Jamaica summarises the terrible 
catastrophe : — 

"Whole streets with their inhabitants were swallowed up by the opening 
of the earth, which when shut upon them squeezed the people to death, and 
in that manner several were left with their heads above ground and others 
covered with dust and earth by the people who remained in the place. It 
was a sad sight to see the harbour covered with dead bodies of people of all 
conditions, floating up and down without burial, for the burying place was 
destroyed by the earthquake, which dashed to pieces tombs and the sea washed 
the carcases of those who had been buried out of their graves." At Green 
Bay there is still the tomb of Lewis (ialdy, "who was swallowed up by the 
earthquake and by the Providence of God was, by another shock, thrown into 
the sea and miraculously saved by swimming until a boat took him up. He 
lived many years after in great reputation, beloved by all who knew him and 
much lamented at his death." The ruins of old Port Royal are even yet 
visible in clear weather from the surface of the waters under which they lie 
and relics are often procured by divers on exploring the ruins. 



14 



PARISHES OF JAMAICA. 



The greater part of the present town of Port Royal is occupied by the 
quarters of the naval and military troops, and by batteries and other means of 
defence. It is reached from Kingston by steam launch or by other boats. 

To the North of Kingston is the Parish of 

ST. ANDREW, 
the lower portion of which may be regarded as a suburb of Kingston, for 
here, within easy reach of office or store, are the homes of many of the 
leading commercial and professional men. 

The tram-car from the Victoria Market terminus runs in a northerly direc- 
tion about seven and one-half miles from Kingston, passing through the pretty 




CONSTANT SPRING HOTEL, KINGSTON. 

village of Halfway-Tree and stopping at Constant Spring. Halfway-Tree has 
its Court House and Market and a beautifully restored Parish Church, which 
is quite worth seeing as a model of what can be done by good taste and 
religious devotion. The central East window of the Church is a memorial of 
Dr. Aubrey Spencer, second Bishop of Jamaica. In the middle is a repre- 
sentation of the Ascension of Jesus Christ, on either side of which are side 
lights, that on the right depicting tropical scenery suggestive of the Bishop's 
connection with Jamaica, and that on the left showing an Arctic scene 
commemorative of his occupancy of the See of Newfoundland from which he 
was translated to Jamaica. To the North of this middle window, and also 
at the East end, is a window in memory of Dr. Charles Campbell, a late 
doctor in Kingston, equally renowned for his philanthropy and his professional 



PARISHES OF JAMAICA. 1 5 

skill ; this window appropriately contains representations of St. Luke, the 
Medico-Evangelist, the Healing of the Paralytic and the Good Samaritan. The 
corresponding window on the South perpetuates the memory of the piety and 
good works of the Doctor's brother, the late Venerable Archdeacon Campbell, 
and represents the Adoration of the Magi, the Resurrection and the Washing 
the Disciples' Feet. Monuments and memorial tablets of departed Governors 
and local celebrities are to be found both in the Church and in the church- 
yard. Passing the Constant Spring Hotel which has already been mentioned, 
we come to the foot of Stony Hill. At the top of Stony Hill we are 1,425 
feet above the level of the sea, and the difference of climate between it and 
the lowlands is very perceptible, though the distance between the summit of 
the hill and Kingston is only nine miles. Here is the private residence of 
the present Bishop of Jamaica and a block of buildings which were formerly 
the military encampment for white troops, but which are now the premises of 
the Government Reformatory for boys. Beyond Stony Hill to the left hand 
side of the road, we soon reach a wide stretch of land, devoted to the culti- 
vation of tobacco and largely inhabited by Cubans ; this tobacco has a very 
high reputation, and there are not wanting connoisseurs who prefer it to the 
choicest brands of Cuban growth. On certain days, and under atmospheric 
conditions, during the curing season the traveller, journeying from Kingston 
across the Island, may inhale for some considerable time the unadulterated 
flavour of the finest tobacco. The road — which is known as the Junction 
Road — then continues down hill till it reaches the confines of the Parish of 
St. Mary and terminates at the little sea-port town of Annotto Bay. On this 
road, nineteen miles from Kingston and eleven miles from Annotto Bay, are 
the Castleton Gardens. Castleton is in St. Mary's Parish, but on account of 
its accessibility to Kingston and St. Andrew is more properly mentioned here. 
A double buggy from Kingston to the Gardens and back can be hired for 
30s. These Gardens contain a large collection of native and tropical plants, 
and no one ought to leave Jamaica without visiting them. Their chief features 
are the palmetum, a collection of economic, spice and fruit trees, a fine collec- 
tion of East Indian and West Indian orchids, an experimental ground for new- 
industrial plants, and large nurseries containing cacao, rubber plants, nutmeg, 
clove, peppers, mango, vanilla, cardamum, sarsaparilla, Liberian coffee, etc., etc. 
Apart from industrial plants, Castleton Gardens contain such interesting Botanical 
specimens as, among others, the splendid Victoria Regia (the Water Lily of 
the Amazon), the Amherstia Nobilis, the most magnificent of ornamental 
flowering trees, the Java Upas Tree, the Ravenalia Madagascariense, commonly 
known as the Traveller's Tree of Madagascar, a tree from which a cold drink 
can be extracted at any minute the whole year round. Alongside the Eastern 
boundary of the Gardens flows the Wag Water River, on the Western bank of 
which is a grotto, convenient for picnic parties, shaded by the foliage of trees 
and protected by overhanging rocks. The average annual rainfall at Castleton is 
more than 108 inches and therefore, on the occasion of a visit there, it is wise to 
be provided with umbrellas and waterproofs. 



i6 



PARISHES OF JAMAICA. 



Another road from Kingston is that which leads through Gordon Town to 
Newcastle and the St. Andrew's Hills. Passing the Jamaica High School for 
boys, the University College and the Hope Gardens, a newly founded Government 
Institution, the road plunges into a gorge that is thoroughly characteristic of 
Jamaica mountain scenery. On the one hand a precipitous bank of ferns and 
wild-flowers and patches of guinea grass, now and then a boulder of dark grey 
rock cropping out, with sheltering clumps of moss and fern in its niches and 
hollows. On the other hand, a hundred feet below, the Hope River roars 
along over its bed of smooth boulders and brown gravel. The road winds sharply 
in and out, following the contour of the hills, and guarded at nearly every 




: \ ;y - it 




PORT ROYAL. 



turn by strong retaining walls from the dangers of the precipice that overhangs 
the river. Higher and higher it mounts ; cottages dot the hillside ; ferns and 
begonias cluster thicker ; the air is fresher and more bracing and our spirits rise 
involuntarily. Then after an hour's brisk drive from Kingston the village of 
Gordon Town is reached, where there is just enough room for a straggling row of 
houses between the mountain at the back and the river at the foot of the 
precipice in front. 

Beyond Gordon Town progress must be made either on foot or on horseback, 
the mountain track being too narrow and too steep for buggy or carriage. 

Reaching Newcastle and looking southward the visitor will be rewarded for 
his climb with a magnificent view of the Liguanea Plain, the Town and Harbour 
of Kingston, and the sea beyond to a far horizon; while to the north, east 



PARISHES OF JAMAICA. 1 7 

and west, tower the slopes and crests of the Blue Mountains. A walk along 
any of the numerous paths across the slopes and leading to the ridges above will 
repay him with an endless wealth of ferns, orchids and wild flowers, and he will 
be reminded of home by the wild strawberries nestling in the hollows along 
the banks. 

The highest point of this range is the Blue Mountain Peak, 7,500 feet above 
sea level, the journey to which should be a two days' trip, spending the night 
in the hut on the top of the Peak. Provisions will have to be laid in, and guides 
can be procured who will also act as porters. 

The road mounts ridge after ridge, winding down steep mountain sides, crossing 
the streams that rush down every gorge, skirting along the slopes and mounting 
over the tops of the intervening hills, and now and then leaving one valley 
and following the course of another. (\ 

An easy ride of about four hours brings us to Farm Hill Coffee Plantation, 
where the keys of the hut on the Summit of the Peak and useful information 
about the road, or the weather, or the water supply may be obtained. 

Leaving Farm Hill the road winds along past Whitfield Hall to Abbey 
Green, whose houses and terraces of solid masonry are perched on slopes of such 
surpassing steepness that they appear in imminent danger of tumbling headlong 
into the abyss that lies beneath them. 

Behind this the road zig-zags up the steep side of the mountain, threading 
its course between fields of coffee, some of them of such venerable age that 
many of the coffee bushes have assumed the appearance of dwarfed trees from 
the constant lopping and priming, with trunks from six to nine inches in diameter, 
and a height of only four feet or thereabout. 

The leaves of the Cinchona, blotched with scarlet, now add their quota of 
colour to the scene ; for we are leaving the coffee region behind and entering 
upon the elevation at which this useful febrifuge best flourishes. Hundreds of 
acres were planted here some fifteen years ago, and should have been a mine of 
wealth to the growers ; but, now that artificial quinine can be produced so 
cheaply, the Cinchona plant runs wild and self-sown, growing in rank thickets on 
many a misty slope of the Blue Mountain. 

On reaching the top, about two hours after leaving Farm Hill, we find a 
small open space covered with short springy turf and fringed with stunted trees. 
At one side of it stands a little hut of two rooms, where accommodations for the 
night may be had. There is a stove and a supply of firewood, which von may 
use, provided you replace the latter on leaving — a most rigidly observed point of 
Peak etiquette. To the south of the hut there is a narrow track leading down 
a precipitous ravine, near which is a small pool of water sufficient for one's 
absolute needs. Should the weather however have been abnormally dn this may 
fail, and in such seasons the wise traveller will bring drinking water with him. 

The thermometer at early morning is frequently down to forty degrees Fahren- 
heit; on a recent occasion, during the cold wave o( February, [886, solid ice was 
found there. 

The weather should of course be carefully considered, as on that depends 



15 PARISHES OF JAMAICA. 

entirely the success of the expedition ; and it should be remembered that the 
annual rainfall at the Peak amounts to about 130 inches. The calm, clear 
weather prevailing about the time of the vernal and autumnal equinoxes will be 
found the most favourable for the ascent. 

Other places of interest in the Parish of St. Andrew are the King's House, 
the official residence of the Governor, the grounds of which are beautifully laid 
out, and the Up-Park Camp Barracks, about one and one-half miles north of 
Kingston, the head-quarters of the West Indian Regiment. Tne military band 
plays once a week' in the evening and occasionally in the afternoon, and the Camp 
is a favourite resort for lovers of music. 







KING'S HOUSE, SPANISH TOWN. 

To the east of Kingston is the Parish of 

ST. THOMAS. 

For any one who has time to drive round the Island and to see what of Jamaica 
can be seen in a flying visit, a leisurely journey along the main coast road of 
the Island is an enjoyable experience. There are varieties of scenery, life, char- 
acter ; there are good roads and entertainments varying from good to moderate. 
To take this tour is perhaps the best way of seeing Jamaica, to follow its track 
may be the best way of illustrating and describing Jamaica. Let us start in 
an easterly direction from Kingston and drive in turn through the country 
parishes. 

Kingston is soon left behind, the road passing between rows of detached 
villas, each with its garden bright with roses, and crotons and tropical flowers 



PARISHES OF JAMAICA. 



J 9 



which bloom so brightly and luxuriantly that one can almost fancy they enjoy 
the pleasure of existence. Soon we are by the shore of the harbour and pass 
Rock Fort and Brighton Beach and the Head of the Harbour. Rock Fort is 
picturesque to look at, but obsolete and useless as a means of defence against 
modern artillery. 

After about an hour's drive the Falls River is reached. There is, however, 
no river to be seen, but the dry bed of a water-course fringed with unsightly 
bush, mostly of a thorny description. But those who are equal to the task of 
leaving their buggy and walking a mile or so up the ravine to where it emerges 
from those volcanic rocks that frown down upon it, will find a stream of crystal 
water. Following the rocky path cut along one side of it they arrive at the foot 
of a romantic looking waterfall, roaring down a canon whose adamant walls tower 
hundreds of feet above. 




H. M. S. URGENT.' 



This spot and its neighbourhood are historically interesting as having been 
the haunt, about one hundred and twenty years ago, of Three-Fingered Jack, whose 
exploits have found their way into English melodrama. He was a notorious 
negro highwayman, for dread of whom travellers refrained from passing along this 
road after dark. A price was set by the Government upon his head, and the 
reward was earned by a Maroon, who killed him and brought into Head-quarters 
the deformed hand that gave the robber his appellation, as proof positive ot his 
achievement. 

Leaving the Falls River the road crosses the spurs of the Blue Mountain 
Range that here fall abruptly into the sea. From the summits of some of these. 
as the road swings sharply round the head of a ravine, exquisite little glimpses 
are obtained between the hills of Port Royal, the Palisades, Kingston Harbour, 
and the distant heights beyond, with deep blue water in the foreground studded 
with the white sails of coasting vessels or fishing canoes. 



20 PARISHES OF JAMAICA. 

And so on down the steep Four Mile Wood Hill and along the edge of a 
mangrove swamp, until Albion Estate is reached, the bright green of whose rust- 
ling cane fields forms a pleasing contrast to the sombre tone of the forest 
vegetation. A few miles beyond Albion is the village of Yallahs, the principal 
object of interest in which is the old church, the first erected on the Island after 
its occupation by the English. It is solidly built, but simple and unpretentious 
in architecture. 

About a mile and a half beyond Yallahs the Salt Ponds are reached, sheets 
of stagnant brackish water, teeming with fish and swarming with alligators, of 
which latter the traveller is sure to see one or two floating with snout and tail 




CASTLETON GARDENS. 



projecting above the surface of the water at almost any time of the day. Passing 
these, the scenery, which, but for the bold and ever changing outline of the hills 
on the north, is rather monotonous, begins to improve. 

We pass through one or two villages, with tall and graceful cocoanut palms 
and fruit trees overshading the thatched huts, and knots of happy little 
urchins playing by the roadside. Crimson poinsettia and flowering hybiscus 
brighten the hedges ; and soon we approach the sea-shore again, along which 
we skirt for nearly four miles, while on the left springs of fresh water gush 
out of the rocks, and at one spot a waterfall comes tumbling into the road. 

Now, the laughter of women and children rings out, bathing or washing 
clothes in the stream, or filling their cans and calabashes with water. Then a 
stretch of wide common opens up dotted with browsing sheep and cattle, houses 



PARISHES OF JAMAICA. 2 1 

and estates ; buildings stand out against the background of the beautiful hills, and 
Belvidere Estate is passed, the original owner of which was Robert Freeman, the 
iirst Speaker of the first House of Assembly in Jamaica. 

Passing through a forest of bananas, we come out into the course of the 
Morant River, where the many tracks that the water has torn up are bordered by 
"beds of wild cane waving their silken plumes. Here and there a massive trunk, 
torn from the forest higher up, lies prostrate, witness of the fury of the swollen 
torrent. Looking up Northwards are to be seen the encircling sweep of the hills, 
and the Peaks of the Blue Mountains towering over all. 

A mile beyond this is the town of Morant Bay, which has an unenviable 
notoriety as being the seat of the disturbances of 1865. Here one's attention is 
attracted by the sign of American enterprise in the wharf and buildings of the 
Boston Fruit Co., whose business has an important branch here. The Court 
House and the Square are objects of melancholy interest, the former being built 
-upon the foundations of the old building destroyed by the rioters in 1865, while 
the square was the scene of much of the punishment that accompanied the 
retribution. 

A visit to Morant Bay will not be complete without a run up the Blue 
Mountain Valley, one of the most charming bits of scenery to be found in the 
whole Island of Jamaica, as far as Serge Island Estate. This place will be found 
to combine the highest class of cane cultivation with the most improved methods 
of sugar manufacture; while its red-roofed "great house" is a fine specimen of 
old Jamaica architecture. Add to these a beautiful and tastefully laid out garden, 
where tropical plants and those of more temperate regions are made to grow side 
l>y side in bewildering variety, surrounded by a wealth of ferns and orchids, and 
you have a perfectly ideal tropical demesne, even without the incomparable back- 
ground of bold forest-clad mountain range and towering peaks in which it nestles. 

Seven miles beyond Morant Bay is situated the shipping place of Port Morant. 
Town, properly speaking, there is none, in spite of the safe and almost land- 
locked harbour. But considerable business is done here in the fruit trade, this 
being the head-quarters on the south side of the Island of the Boston Fruit Co. 
Their wharves and offices are at the east side of the harbour, where the depth is 
great enough for steamers of 2,000 tons to moor alongside in perfectly smooth 
water. Along the road hither, if it be the day of the arrival of a fruit steamer, 
will be met spring carts and wagons, all laden with the luscious banana. 

The road now leaves the coast and turns toward the little town of Hath. 
The scenery becomes more and more tropical and the vegetation richer and 
richer. Gorgeous shrubs line the roadside, the ever frequent stream is crossed, 
now by bridge, now by ford, now small, now large, until we reach the 
Plantain Garden River, which, rising far away in the recesses of the Blue 
Mountains, flows from west to east, and discharges itself into the sea at Holland 
Bay to the north of the Morant Point Lighthouse. It traverses in its course 
a plain bounded on the north by the precipitous slope of the Blake Mown 
tains — until recently known as the John Crow Mountains — and on the south by 
a range of low hills which divide it from the sea on that side. This plain 



22 



PARISHES OF JAMAICA. 



it covers, when in flood, with alluvial deposit from the hills above, thus 
making the Plantain Garden River district one of the most fertile spots on 
the Island. 

About a quarter of a mile further, after fording a tributary of the Plan- 
tain Garden River, we find ourselves at a sudden turn of the road in the 
town of Bath, the approach to which is by an avenue in which Otaheite 
apple trees predominate, interspersed with ackees, mangoes and cotton trees. 

The glory has departed from Bath, as from many another Jamaica town. But 
the mineral waters, to which it owes its existence, are still there. They are worth 
visiting on account of the natural beauty of their situation, and the sufferer from 




ON THE WAG WATER AT CASTLETON. 



rheumatism, or any ailment of a cutaneous nature, will here find relief, if not: 
ultimate cure. 

The way to them lies along a narrow gorge bordered with fern and moss and', 
creepers covering the dark grey rock and almost hiding from view the river rush- 
ing along below. Tree ferns spread abroad their arching fronds, and the air is> 
fragrant and heavy with moisture, for it is a veritable hot-house of nature. Sudden 
showers of rain are apt to come pelting down, a danger which has been provided 
against by the erection, at intervals of half a mile, of zinc-roofed sheds over the 
road. From out the rocks above, tiny streamlets trickle across into the river 
beneath, some hot, some cold, and high over all nods the graceful bamboo with 
its whispering leaves. A mile and a half of this enchanted road brings us to the 
Baths, which are wedged in between the hillside and the river bank. The springs 



PARISHES OF JAMAICA. - 23 

that supply them with hot and cold water bubble out of the rocks higher up 
within a few feet of each other, the hot one at a temperature of 130 degrees 
Fahrenheit. The following is the analysis of the water : 

Chloride of Sodium, - - - - - 13-84 

Chloride of Potassium, - - - ■ - 0.32 

Sulphate of Calcium, - - - - - 5.01 

Sulphate of Soda, - - - - - 6.37 

Carbonate of Soda, - - - - - 1.69 

Silica, -------- 2.72 

Oxide of sodium, combined with silica, - - 1.00 

Organic matter, - - - - - - °-99 

The above being the proportion to one gallon of water. 

There is accommodation for visitors at Bath, but much requires to be done 
in the way of increasing and improving the accommodation, before the virtues of 
the mineral springs are as widely used and appreciated as they ought to be. 

In the river, above the baths, are deep pools and foaming cascades of 
most exquisite beauty. The curative properties of the springs are said to have 
been accidentally discovered by a slave in the early part of the last century. 

In the year 1774 a botanic garden was established at Bath, of which now 
only about an acre remains ; sadly neglected, but containing some magnificent 
specimens of ornamental and economic trees transported hither from other lands. 
Here flourishes and flowers, although almost uprooted by hurricane, a solitary 
Amherstia nobilis. Great tangles of knotted vine, vanilla among them, clasp 
the branches of the Spathodea and Barringtonia in their embrace, forming a 
canopy under which palms, rattans, dracaenas, irises and a legion of others 
rankly grow. But chief of all is the gigantic coco de mer, the palm that 
takes seventy years to arrive at maturity, and under any one leaf of which a 
dozen men could find perfect shelter from the heaviest shower of rain. 

Leaving Bath we drive along a level road through the Plantain Garden 
River Plain, where banana cultivation is largely carried on. 

It is a noble view that unfolds itself to the gaze, as, after a drive of 
six miles, the traveller begins the ascent of the Quaw Hill, and turning round 
sees this fruitful land stretched out below, banana fields alternating with pasture 
land, the tall chimneys and white works, relics of the by-gone sugar industry 
still standing among the broad leaves, teams of cattle toiling along before the 
plough, and the river here and there gleaming out from its fringe of rustling 
bamboos. 

But this soon fades from sight, and, reaching the top of the hill we are 
presently on a breezy upland where the road is scarcely discernible, and the 
telegraph posts are almost the only guide across the short, crisp turf, sweetened 
by the spray flung over it by the incoming breakers from the open sen. 

Passing the clean little town of Manchioneal, scene of some of the exploits 
recorded in " Tom Cringle's Log," embowered in cocoanut palms thai grow 
down to the very ed^c of the land locked little harbour, after a few miles of 



24 



PARISHES OF JAMAICA. 



romantic scenery, a turn of the road reveals the east harbour of Port Antonio, 
the chief town in the Parish of 

PORTLAND. 

An outjutting promontory of coral rock, carpeted with green turf, divides 
the bay into two harbours. On this spit of land stands the picturesque 
remains of an ancient Fort, and behind it the old barracks. From the further 
margin of each harbour the hills rise step by step, profusely covered with 
tropical vegetation and plumed with many a tall cocoanut, among which the 
white walls and the green windows and the red roofs of the houses look out 




ON THE ROAD TO CASTLETON. 



seawards. Behind these again mount ridge upon ridge of the Blue Mountain 
Range right up into the clouds that hang round the Peaks. Outside the mouth 
of the harbour white-crested waves break against the iron rock on which the red 
lighthouse is perched. The vessel comes bounding in on the swell, rushing 
apparently to certain destruction, when, suddenly swinging under the lee of the 
Island that guards the mouth of the west harbour, she glides along on even keel 
over the unruffled surface of this harbour till she anchors alongside one of the 
wharves, where two or three steamers are generally to be seen taking in fruit for 
the American market. 

For here are the head -quarters of the Boston Fruit Co., whose enterprise has, 
it may almost be said, saved the two most easterly parishes of the Island from 



PARISHES OF JAMAICA. 25 

reverting, sugar being extinct, to the condition of primeval forest. The American 
visitor might well fancy himself in some town in the Southern States in his 
native land — American vessels in the harbour, American boats scudding about the 
bay, and American wagons rattling along the street. 

The head offices of the Boston Fruit Co. are at Long Wharf, Boston, Mass., 
and they despatch two steamers weekly thence and from Baltimore. Their 
vessels being primarily intended for the fruit trade, the passenger accommodation is 
necessarily limited ; but eight or ten can be carried conveniently at the very rea- 
sonable rates of $60.00 for a return ticket from Boston, and $50.00 from Baltimore. 
The passage is made in five and a half or six days. 

If the tourist should choose this means of reaching Jamaica he will never 
forget the entrance to Port Antonio Harbour, especially if he should chance to 
arrive at early morning or towards sunset. 

Among the places of interest to be visited in the neighbourhood the mag- 
nificent banana plantations at Golden Vale and Seaman's Valley are the chief. The 
effect of many hundred acres of broad shining leaves glistening in the sun, row 
upon row, with the virgin forest of the mountain ridges for a background, and 
the broad bosom of the Rio Grande, the second largest river in the Island, gleam- 
ing in front, cannot be surpassed anywhere. 

From Port Antonio the route lies westward along the north coast of 
the Island, passing the little towns of Hope Bay and Buff Bay. Still roars 
the sea on the right, open bay giving place to quiet cove, and occasion- 
ally a bit of mangrove swamp, where the tall trees stand up on stilts of 
arched roots between which oozes sluggish black water. Myriads of queerly 
shaped crabs scurry across the road. They appear to have concentrated 
all their energies on the development of one enormous claw, which, carried 
defiantly across the face, wide open, is in absurd disproportion to the 
rest of the structure. These breaks in the chain only give one greater zest 
for the enjoyment of the next bit of coral beach and cocoanut-fringed emerald 
water. 

And wherever cultivation is practicable there grow bananas. We pass also 
through two or three of the largest cocoanut plantations in the Island, and wit- 
ness abundant signs of the importance of the banana and the cocoanut in the 
welfare of the population of this neighbourhood. If the tourist should happen to 
be thirsty by the way, he may do a great deal worse than try a water cocoanut. 
That means an unripe cocoanut, in which the meat is of such texture that it may 
be scooped out and eaten with a spoon — and the water of which lias a 
most pleasingly palatable flavour. If it be early in the day, the temperature of 
this is sure to be several degrees lower than that of any other fluid that he is 
likely to be able to procure along the road. 

The contemplated extension of the Jamaica railway as far as Port Antonio 
will, when effected, make the towns along this road independent o\ the weather, 
which now, during the " northern " season, often interferes very seriously with the 
fruit trade on account of the unprotected state oi the harbours facing the 
north. 



26 



PARISHES OF JAMAICA. 



About eight miles beyond Buff Bay, the western boundary of the Parish of 
Portland is passed, and we enter the classic ground of 

ST. MARY, 

around which cluster a hundred memories of Columbus and the Spanish occupa- 
tion. 

The first town reached is Annotto Bay, the situation of which is suggestive 
of moisture and malaria, owing to the fact that three or four rivers here find 
their way into the sea. Judging, however, from official statistics, Annotto Bay is 
by no means so unhealthy as might be expected. It is a prosperous little town 
and a growing centre of the fruit trade. 




ON THE ROAD TO GORDON TOWN. 



Proceeding westward along the coast, Port Maria is reached — Port Maria, 
the probable Santa Gloria of Columbus. This is a flourishing town, with its 
Church, Court House and Hospital all in good order and in creditable condition. 
It has a fairly good harbour and has not been without its share of the banana 
prosperity. Near the Church is the Victoria Market, built in 1887, in commem- 
oration of the Jubilee of the Queen's Accession. On a promontory, overlooking 
the harbour, is a building formerly known as Fort Haldane, from which a wide- 
reaching view on either side may be obtained, a view including the town and 
harbour, neighbouring estates with their varied cultivation together with Cabrietta 
Island, a reef which acts as a breakwater and protection to the harbour. The 
Port is now devoted to more peaceful uses than its name implies, being the home 



PARISHES OF JAMAICA. 27 

of Gray's Charity, an almshouse where shelter and means of living are provided 
for a certain number of the poor of the Parish of St. Mary. 

Some miles to the west of Port Maria is Oracabessa Bay, on the shores 
of which Christopher Columbus probably first landed in Jamaica on the fifth day 
of May, 1494. This interesting little place bears a good character as a health- 
resort and bananas are shipped from its safe little harbour. Beyond Oracabessa 
is Rio Nuevo, another place of note in the history of the Colony. It was here 
that the Spaniards, taking advantage of the distress and disorganization of the 
British troops, attempted to regain possession of the Island. On a rocky eminence 
near the sea at Rio Nuevo, Don Christopher Sasia, with upwards of 1,000 men, 
occupied what he considered an impregnable fortress. Here the Spaniards were 
attacked by the British and after a desperate fight were defeated with terrible 
loss of life. 

At the north of this parish is Scott's Hall, one of the Maroon towns, not far 
from which is Job's Hill, where some valuable copper ore was found in 1852. An 
unsuccessful attempt to work a copper mine was made — the failure being due 
not to the absence of the mineral so much as to the employment of a wrong 
method of working. 

The Parish of St. Mary is memorable in the history of Jamaica as having 
been the scene of a formidable outbreak among the slaves in the year 1760. The 
insurgents were under the command of two Africans, named Tackey and Jamaica, 
through whose veins ran the fierce Cormantyn blood, and the former of whom 
had held high rank in his native country before being exiled into slavery. On the 
evening of Easter Sunday a party of slaves marched into Port Maria and seized 
the almost unprotected fort and magazine, thereby obtaining possession of arms 
and ammunition. On the following day they were joined by bands of fellow- 
conspirators from neighbouring estates and marched towards the interior of the 
Island, plundering Heywood Hall, Esher and other estates and killing the white 
inhabitants. They retired for rest and safety to Ballard's Valley, where they began 
to enjoy, in wild revellings and reckless carousals, the fruits of a victory which 
was not as yet within their grasp. For their plot was revealed by one Yankee, 
who has been called "a faithful slave," a term which, while including faithfulness- 
to his owner, certainly involves treachery to his comrades and fellow countrymen. 
The regular troops, the militia and hurriedly-enrolled volunteers were quickly 
on the track of the rebels who, after a desperate struggle, were defeated with 
much loss of life. Tackey himself was shot by a Maroon ; of the other ring- 
leaders one was burnt and two were hung in chains, and a large number of the 
rank and file were transported to the Bay of Honduras. 

Leaving Oracabessa, the road crosses the White River, and we enter the 
Parish of 

ST. ANN, 

the " Garden of Jamaica," the loveliness and charm of which have, time after 
time, proved to be beyond the power of the pen of historians, travellers and 
descriptive writers. Let us quote some of these: 



28 



PARISHES OF JAMAICA. 



First of all Peter Martyr, to whom we are indebted for so much informa- 
tion relative to the early settlement of these regions, and who is said to have 
resided in the Abbey of Sevilla Nueva in St. Ann, speaks of sending a household 
servant to ' ' looke into ye affaires of my Paradisian Jamaica. ' ' Then -Bryan 
Edwards says: — "When Columbus first discovered Jamaica he approached it on 
<l the northside, and beholding that part of the country which now constitutes 
*' the Parish of St. Ann, he was filled with delight and admiration at the 
<( novelty, variety and beauty of the prospect." 

But Hill, in his " Lights and Shadows of Jamaica History," rises above them 
all to the height of positive rhapsody. "Earth," he says, "has nothing more 




GORDON TOWN. 



11 lovely than the pastures and pimento groves of St. Ann, nothing more enchant- 
•" ing than its hills and vales, delicious in . verdure and redolent with the 
<i fragrance of spices. Embellished with wood and water, from the deep forests, 
■" from whence the streams descend to the ocean in falls, the blue haze of the air 
<l blends and harmonizes all into beauty." 

And truly it is a fair country. Here is the home of the fragrant pimento, 
more generally known as allspice, Jamaica's unique and indigenous product. Silver 
stems, crowned with dark leaves of glossy green, they stand in groups on the gentle 
slopes, shading the velvety common or the breast-high luscious guinea grass, where 
browse the sleek cattle, or, satiated and recumbent, chew the cud. The scent of 
the ripe berries fills the drowsy air, lulled by the hum of the bee and the roar 
of the waterfall. Graceful clumps of woodland, spreading ceibas, scarlet-blotched 



PARISHES OF JAMAICA. 2 9 

broad-leaf, crown the crests of the undulating hills, where from one, steeper than its 
fellows, the limestone crags crop out. 

White roads bounded by grey stone walls wind along the hollows, dipping into 
the crystal rivulets where the water-lily floats, and sweep up the hill-sides to the 
white mansions glancing through their curtains of trailing creeper. The bright 
magenta of the Bougainvillea, the creamy whiteness of the stephanotis, the pale pink 
of the coralina enfold these lovingly, and with many another, fling broadcast their 
brightness and their fragrance. 

For a background to our view we have hitherto always had the rugged outline 
of some ridge or peak of the Blue Mountains clad in virgin forest ; but now we 
exchange these for rounded hills and swelling pastures. The broad estuaries of 
sluggish rivers, the mangrove swamps, the stony beds of mountain torrents give 
place to babbling streams of a purity that looks as though the flood could never 
defile it, now sweeping in a clear steady current right out to the bar in which 
the white breakers tumble, now shooting out over the cliff sheer down to the beach 
in a silvery cascade. 

There is something weird and mysterious about the origin of these streams. 
They are cradled in the bosom of the earth, in the limestone strata far 
beneath the surface, fed by many a "sink-hole;" now coming out to 
bask in the light of day for a mile or two, then disappearing again 
until they emerge for the final plunge into the sea. One of these, the 
Roaring River, has created for itself a veritable fairy-land in its course 
which we cross on the road to St. Ann's Bay, after passing the village 
of Ocho Rios. The noise which warns us of our approach to it amply justi- 
fies the name of the stream. It finds its way into the sea by a score of 
different channels, each overhung by vegetation in such a way that your first 
impression is that it is only a temporary flow of water escaping from some 
dam above, and will presently cease. The main stream is spanned by a strong 
stone bridge, from which we look down upon a scene which makes us rub our 
eyes and look and look again. There is a clear pool, calm of surface, but 
flowing nevertheless with a strong current seaward, out of which apparently 
grow cabbage palms, banyans, ferns, vines, and other trees and plants innumer- 
able. Looking upward, if we scramble out upon the projecting roots that form 
a rough bridge, the stream mounts terrace upon terrace, each curtained with 
an irridescent veil of falling water, which almost seems to drip from the 
branches of the trees that form the foreground, growing up in mid-stream. 

Leaving the buggy and walking along the path-way about a mile from the 
road, we are rewarded by the sight of the great Fall, one of the loveliest 
objects in a land of beautiful things. 

St. Ann's Bay, the principal town in the parish, is a (-lean little town, 
with a harbour open to the north, outjutting wharves, a street parallel to the 
harbour connected by cross streets with another further away, in which lie the 
principal dry goods and hardware stores. There is a neat little church, and 
the public offices are striking buildings. Cocoanut palms wave everywhere, and 
vegetation crops out in every corner that is not constantly trodden by passing fee;. 



3° 



PARISHES OF JAMAICA. 



About a mile to the west of St. Ann's Bay was the site of the first Capital 
of the Island, Sevilla Nueva, or Sevilla d'Oro, founded by Don Juan d'Esquivel, 
the first Spanish Governor of Jamaica. It was of large extent, and contained 
a Cathedral, a Monastery, a Theatre, and many Palaces. Owing to some cause 
of which no record has been left, it was abandoned and allowed to decay till 
scarcely a trace remains of the ancient city. 

To the East of St. Ann's Bay is Don Christopher's Cove, so called from 
the fact that Columbus is reported, on the occasion of his last voyage to the 
West Indies, to have there stranded his two last crippled ships. Another place of 
interest to students of the early history of Jamaica is Runaway Bay, about ten 




SAVANNA-LA-MAR. 



miles from St. Ann's Bay on the Northern coast of the Parish of St. Ann. 
Hence it was that Don Arnoldi Sasi, the last of the Spanish Governors, after 
•a desperate struggle with Cromwell's troops, managed to make his escape to 
Cuba. Dry Harbour, the Puerto Bueno of the Spaniards, is reached by road 
or by water from St. Ann's Bay. It is mainly interesting for its historic 
associations and for its proximity to a remarkable cavern at a place called 
Cave Hall Pen. This Cave is very long and contains two galleries which 
branch into grottoes and side aisles, from which there are stalagmites and 
stalactites of strange beauty. 

South-east of St. Ann's Bay is the inland village of Moneague where, at an 
elevation of 950 feet above the sea-level, is a small hotel. The charges at the 
Moneague are not excessive, the climate is fairly good, and lovers of picturesque 
scenery will not be disappointed if they spend a few days there. 



PARISHES OF JAMAICA. 



31 



The mountains of this district of St. Ann have, like so many other parts of 
Jamaica, their bloody legends of bygone days, which may be related here. 

About the year 1770, there lived at Pedro Vale in this district, Louis Hutch- 
inson, a notorious murderer. Hutchinson was a Scotchman by birth, whose 
feelings had been hardened and disposition brutalised by the sad fate of his father 
and sister. His father had been murdered by a military officer who afterwards 
first outraged, and then murdered, his sister. Hutchinson lived at a house called 
" Edinburgh Castle," which overlooked a narrow pass leading from the North to 
the South of the Island. Here, assisted by his slaves, and under cover of a thick 
logwood fence, he waylaid the unwary traveller, and for many years few persons 
escaped his unerring aim. His victims were often mutilated and dismembered 
before being cast into a gully to decay, or be washed to the sea by the mountain 
torrents. His last victim was a man named Callendar, the manager of a neigh- 




MARTHA BRAE, FALMOUTH. 



bouring estate. The story goes that Hutchinson would imprison infirm or sick 
persons in order to fatten them for the sacrifice, and that one unhappy creature 
so imprisoned was a witness of the murder of Callendar, contrived to escape and 
reported what he had seen to the authorities. Hutchinson, now that concealment 
was no longer possible, fled to Old Harbour and put out to sea in a small, open 
boat, but was arrested by a vessel sent in search of him by Admiral Lord Rodney. 
The number of his victims is unknown, but as many as forty-seven watches were 
found in his house. He was hung in Spanish Town on the 16th of March, 1773. 
Brown's Town is an important inland town in this parish. It is a great 
centre of the produce trade, and at all hours of the day and night in certain 
seasons, drays and carts may be met loaded with the fragrant pimento and the 
aromatic coffee, toiling up towards the town, or returning laden with the various 
commodities and necessaries of life with which the stores there are so well supplied. 
A bright, clean, smart-looking little place is this. None of those squalid tumble- 



3 2 



PARISHES OF TAMAICA. 



down shanties, that so often offend the eye in the coast towns, meet the gaze. It 
carries in its face an air of prosperity that is no mere pretence. 
To the West of St. Ann's Parish is that of 

TRELAWNY, 

which derives its name from Governor Sir William Trelawny, who died in Jamaica 
in the year 1772, and its chief town, Falmouth, is the second in size in the whole 
Island. The most interesting way by which to approach Falmouth is by road from 
Brown's Town'. It is not merely that the scenery through which the road passes 
equals in picturesqueness that of other parts of Jamaica, but the social conditions 




ROARING RIVER. 



which prevail differ from those of other districts. On the left is a district which 
some fifty years ago was made the scene of a curious experiment, namely, an 
attempt to introduce European immigrants into Jamaica. If in one sense the 
experiment was a failure, in another it was a success. For if on the one hand 
it showed that, as a general rule, the European constitution cannot stand prolonged 
out-door labour on the hot plains of Jamaica, on the other hand it proved that such 
labour was quite possible in the cool and healthy mountain districts. Unfortunately 
the experiment was mismanaged and ended disastrously. Many of these immigrants 
were German by nationality and were located in this part of Trelawny. Their 
descendents may be found in the neighbouring Ulster Spring district, where the 
percentage of crime and illegitimacy is less than in most other districts, and where 



PARISHES OF JAMAICA. 33 

the general condition is that of a happy and contented people. Falmouth itself 
is a neat, well-kept town, with broad streets and several handsome and substantial 
buildings. Foremost among these is the Court House. Trelawny has always been 
famed for the lavish hospitality of its inhabitants, and the receptions given to 
successive Governors at Falmouth are characteristic of this hospitality. On the 
walls of the Court House are, mementoes of past Governors. One of these is a 
full length portrait of General Sir John Keene, who was Lieutenant Governor of 
the Colony from 182 7-1829 and who, at a critical time, administered the Govern- 
ment with mingled firmness and conciliation. Another portrait here is that of 
Sir Charles Metcalfe, who was Governor from 1839 to 1842 and whose conduct, 
under circumstances of considerable difficulty, deservedly earned for him the respect 
and admiration of the colonists. The Episcopal Church at Falmouth is a fairly 
substantial building which is now being internally repaired and decorated ; but the 
most interesting ecclesiastical building is the Baptist Chapel, a spacious structure 
erected through the instrumentality of the Rev. William Knibb, the energetic and 
enthusiastic missionary who suffered much hardship and persecution on account of 
his labours among the slaves prior to emancipation. 

Just outside Falmouth we cross the Martha Brae River, near which there is a 
tradition that a gold mine exists. It is said that the Spanish Governor, Don 
Pedro d'Esquivel, giving audience once to a cacique of the aboriginal tribes, was 
struck by the profusion of golden ornaments with which he had adorned his per- 
son, and demanded of him the secret of the mine. The indian refused to com- 
municate this and was put to torture. If the secret was ever discovered, it was 
most effectually buried again, for no one has ever come across the mine since, and 
"the secret gold mine" it remains, and probably will ever remain. 

Leaving Trelawny, to the East we enter the Parish of 

ST. JAMES, 

of which the chief town is Montego Bay, which ranks next to Kingston in point 
of commercial importance, as gauged by the amount of export and import duties 
collected. The Court House in Montego Bay is a fine building, dating from the 
year 1803. There is a handsome and extensive market, built some few years ago. 
Different religious denominations have their places of worship in the town, the 
most striking being the old Parish Church, which contains within its walls records 
of past generations of North-side celebrities, including one beautiful piece of sculp- 
ture by Chantrey. One monument in this Church has a strange story attached to 
it, a story which we may charitably hope to be apocryphal. This is the statue of 
a lady, by name Palmer, who lived at Rose Hill, an estate in the Parish of Tre- 
lawny. It is reported of this lady that she had murdered no less than five 
husbands, and that she herself died a violent death by strangulation. It appears 
strange that the memory of this female fiend should be perpetuated by a monu- 
ment in church, but it is still more strange that, after the statue had been erected, 
there appeared round its marble neck a mark such as would be made by a hang- 
man's rope, and that this mark had not been visible before the erection o( the 
statue. 



34 



PARISHES OF JAMAICA. 



Montego Bay is in direct communication weekly with New York, by means 
of the fruit steamers of Messrs. J. E. Kerr & Co., which also carry passengers. 

In the Parish of St. James there is an observatory at Kempshot in the hills, 
about ten miles from Montego Bay, at an elevation of 1,770 feet, which was built 
on his own property by Mr. Maxwell Hall, a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical 
Society, who now occupies the position of Resident Magistrate for the parish. 
Mr. Hall's scientific knowledge and the use of his observatory are at the disposal 
of the Government, and he has contributed many valuable additions to the 
meteorology of Jamaica and the West Indies generally. 

The mountains among which this place lies were the scene of a long and 




AT DRY HARBOUR. 



bloody struggle between the Maroons and the Government during the last years of 
the eighteenth century. Exasperated by a gross breach of their treaty privileges 
on the part of the authorities, these rough mountaineers rebelled, and were 
eventually only subdued by the importation of bloodhounds from Cuba to hunt 
them down. 

Ruins of fine old barracks in a delightfully healthy situation are still to be seen 
at Maroon Town, about fourteen miles from Montego Bay. The empty window 
frames and crumbling walls surrounding the level green parade-ground that once 
resounded to the clatter of hoofs, the clash and jingle of accoutrements and the 
hoarse word of command, all call up the, ghastly tragedies which were enacted 
among the defiles of these hills, now so silent and peaceful. 

A great impetus has lately been given to the commerce of Montego Bay, 



PARISHES OF JAMAICA. 35 

and its neighbourhood, by the operations of the Railway Company, which has 
begun an extension line which in a few month's time will connect Kingston with 
Montego Bay. 

The Great River marks the boundary between St. James and 

HANOVER, 

the most westerly parish on the North-side. Crossing this on an iron bridge, the 
load takes us on and on through a repetition of tropical scenery, changing and 
rechanging at every turn, to the cliff where we suddenly come upon the land-locked 
harbour of Lucea, which in some respects resembles that of Port Antonio, but is of 
much greater size. At the end of the harbour is a bold promontory from which 
rise the grey walls and spire of the old church, and the square, solid buildings 
of the barracks with only the sky for a background, while at its extremity the 
"battlements and embrasures of the ancient fort frown upon the waters which it 
once guarded. Cannon, too useless with age and rust, are still there. White 
sails flit across the blue water and tiny dug-outs dart to and fro. An amphi- 
theatre of hills frames this loveliness on three sides, on the slopes of which, green 
with patches of guinea grass and cane, comfortable looking houses are perched. 
The whole picture is eloquent of peace, of prosperity, and, above all, of health. 
For the livelong day the pure fresh sea-breeze sweeps across the harbour, untainted 
"by dust, or other impurity ; and there are no malarious swamps to poison the 
"breath of the land-wind that nightly brings refreshing coolness from the Dolphin 
Head, looming up yonder to the South. 

The yam, which is largely cultivated in Hanover, enjoys a great reputation in 
the other parts of the Island and on the Isthmus of Panama. 

In travelling through the interior of Hanover, especially in the immediate 
vicinity of Lucea, yam greets the eye at every step — that is the outward and 
visible sign of the yam in the shape of heavy dark green creepers growing on 
sticks planted in the ground. The yam itself is the root from which this 
creeper springs. 

To the South of the Parish of Hanover is that of 

WESTMORELAND. 

We may reach this from Montego Bay without including Lucea in the route ; we 
may also go from Lucea direct, or round by way of Green Island. The first is a 
beautiful road leading through the finest grazing country in the Island. But for 
the great clumps of bamboo that constantly throw their graceful shade over the 
ponds and the profusion of water lilies that deck their surfaces, and remind us 
that we are still in the tropics, the sleek Herefords and the Shorthorns grazing 
contentedly on fat, clean pastures, bounded by grey stone walls, might delude us 
into the belief that we had suddenly been transported into some more temperate 
region. 

There are six "pens" — as these grazing farms are called in Jamaica — in this 
district, namely Shettlewood, Ramble, Knockalva, Haughton Grove, Burnt Ground 
and Cacoon Castle, each of whose acreage runs into the thousands, and which 



36 



PARISHES OF JAMAICA. 



can show stock that would not disgrace any English Cattle show. At Shettle- 
wood may be seen the silver-grey hides and quaint shapes of Zebu and Mysore 
Cattle imported from India, whose offspring, when crossed with the native animal, 
make about the most useful stock for draft purposes that can be desired. 

The chief town of Westmoreland is Savanna-la-Mar, a shipping port of some 
importance in the country, and does the export trade of a large number of sugar 
estates on the plains in the interior, the produce of which is floated down the 
Cabaritta River, one of the two navigable streams of the Island. Savanna-la-Mar 
also carries on a large business in logwood, which grows abundantly there. 

Savanna-la-Mar was the scene of one of the most fearful of those frequent 




lONTEGO BAY. 



episodes of death and disaster that occurred in the early history of Jamaica. On 
the 20th of October, 1744, during a fierce hurricane, accompanied by an earth- 
quake, which wrought havoc throughout the whole Island, a huge tidal wave 
engulfed the entire town at one fell swoop, "leaving not a vestige of man, beast, 
or habitation behind." A more sudden and complete catastrophe, this, than even 
the destruction of Port Royal. 

There is in Savanna-la-Mar an excellent school, which was endowed in the 
year 17 10 by Thomas Manning, who left for that purpose by his will an estate 
called Burn Savannah, together with "thirteen negro slaves, one Indian slave, and 
a hundred head of cattle." 

Some ten miles east of Savanna-la-Mar, lies the township of Bluefields, for- 
merly the site of the Spanish Oristan, of which, however, now no trace remains. It was 



PARISHES OF JAMAICA. 37 

also for some time the residence of Mr. Gosse, the naturalist, and is situated on 
the road leading to the adjoining Parish of 

ST. ELIZABETH, 

which is in area the largest, and in population the second largest in the Colony. 
The productions and natural conditions of St. Elizabeth vary very greatly with its 
varied elevation. Its principal town, Black River, is a sea-port town with a fairly 
flourishing trade. Black River, which is built at the mouth of a river of the same 
name, known, however, in Spanish times as the Rio Caobana, is a neat, well-kept 
little place with some creditable public buildings, the most note -worthy of which 
are the Court House and the Episcopal Church. The river is spanned near 
its mouth by an iron bridge and is navigable for some miles inland, bringing 
down to the harbour quantities of logwood which is largely exported from the 
town. Good alligator shooting may be got in the Black River and fairly good 
iishing in some of its tributaries. 

The town of Black River does not give the visitor a correct idea of the 
"beautiful and healthy climate of the northern and central parts of this parish. 
The Santa Cruz Mountains bisect the parish from north to south, termin- 
ating at the southern extremity in a precipitous cliff known as the " Lover's 
Leap." There are several villages on these mountains and the salubrity 
of the climate is more than proverbial. The most popular resort is Malvern 
and the obliging Post Officer there will supply complete information. Dr. 
J. H. Clark, a medical man of some distinction, who can speak of the 
Santa Cruz Mountains from the experience gathered from twenty years' observ- 
ation, has written a very able and appreciative article describing the salutary 
influences of a visit to these mountains. In reply to the question " What 
can I see?" put by a supposed invalid, Dr. Clark replies " There are few 
spots on earth where natural beauties so combine with those of man's creation 
to please and interest him. The beauties of nature abound on every side 
and to persons who sketch, or paint, there is plenty to amuse and edify; 
but invalids must not be encouraged to undergo fatigue or excitement in 
sight seeing ; crowded and heated rooms, late hours, all operate injuriously 
and destroy entirely the beneficial influences of climate." In fact it is 
rather dull work having little but scenery to live on. External circumstances 
and conditions may produce a sensation of pleasure but happiness is of interna, 
growth, and the visitor to, or resident in the Santa Cruz Mountains, or any- 
where else, will be dull enough unless he carries within himself the sources of 
true happiness. 

On the eastern side of these mountains the road passes through a series 
of large paddocks or grazing pens, ending in the precipitous hills which lead to 
the Parish of Manchester. 

In the Santa Cruz Mountains are Schools — for boys at Potsdam, and for 
girls at Malvern — established by means of bequests more than a hundred years 
ago, by Mr. Munro and Mr. Dickenson, both of whom are commemorated 
by memorial tablets in Black River Church. Jamaica is peculiarly rich in educa 



3» 



PARISHES OF JAMAICA. 



tional endowments and there are few English speaking countries where a good 
education can be obtained at so small a cost. 

Other places of interest in St. Elizabeth's parish are the Pedro Bluff where 
are a number of caves supposed to have formerly been Indian burying places ; 
Mexico, where is a cave more than a mile in length, through which flows the 
river Black River ; and Accompong, a Maroon settlement overlooking and adjoin- 
ing the parishes of St. James and Trelawny. 

MANCHESTER. 

The Parish of Manchester is largely a mountain parish, with a healthy,. 




SANTA CRUZ. 



bracing climate and a contented, prosperous population. Its western boundary- 
overlooks the plains of St. Elizabeth from which it is reached by steep climb- 
ing roads. Its principal town is Mandeville, with its old-fashioned village green, 
flanked by the Church, Schools, Court House and general stores. The railway 
extension has brought Mandeville within a few hours of Kingston, the nearest 
rail way -station being at Williamsfield. Mandeville is much resorted to by 
persons wishing a change of air from the heated streets of Kingston, and pos- 
sesses one hotel and several boarding-houses, one of which, presided over by- 
Miss Roy, has been immortalised by Professor Froude. The hotel at Mandeville 
— now known as the " Waverley," but until recently known as Brooks's Hotel — 
is a comfortable, well-conducted institution and can be recommended without 
reservation. 



PARISHES OF JAMAICA. 39 

The scenery, in and around Mandeville, is of a less wild and romantic 
type than that on the north side of the Island. Undulating plains alternate 
with steep ascents ; and tropical trees, cedars, mangoes, almonds, gum-trees, silk- 
cotton trees are to be seen in magnificent luxuriance. No mention of 
Manchester is complete without drawing attention to the oranges which grow in 
this parish as possibly they grow nowhere else in the world. 

The only other town of any note in Manchester is Porus, a small town 
some ten miles from Mandeville, situated on the plains at the foot of the 
Manchester hills. Travelling east from Porus, either by road or by rail, the 
Parish of 

CLARENDON 

is reached. The northern and mountainous portions of this parish are populated 
by a prosperous negro peasantry, cultivating coffee, ginger and other vegetable 
products ; in the southern districts are large sugar estates. The railway crosses 
the parish from east to west and there are three railway stations, namely those 
at May Pen, Four Paths and Clarendon Park. The principal town is Chapel- 
ton, a healthy place, with substantial public buildings, commanding beautiful 
views of the valleys through which flow the rivers Minho and Thomas. 
Lodging accommodation is very deficient at Chapelton, which is a matter for 
regret, seeing that, by reason of its easy access to and from Kingston and the 
undoubted salubrity of its climate, it is in every way suited to become one of 
the most popular health resorts in the Island. Other towns, or villages, besides 
Chapelton, are Rock River in the north, May Pen and Four Paths in the 
centre and The Alley and Milk River in the south. The most important of these 
small centres of population is Milk River, where is a bath, the waters of which are 
possessed of valuable curative properties, especially for gout, rheumatism and 
liver complaints. 

The waters of the Bath come from a small spring which flows from out 
the side of a hill about a hundred yards from the bank. The officially pub- 
lished analysis of these waters gives the following mineral constituents in 1,000 
parts of water : — 

Chloride of Sodium, - - - - 20.77 

Sulphate of Soda, - - - «■ ° 3.10 

Chloride of Magnesium, ----- 4 iI2 

Chloride of Potassium, - - - - - „i5 

Chloride of Calcium, - - - - 1.50 

with traces of lithia, bromine and silica. Unfortunately the accommodation and 
conveniences for the reception of guests are not proportionate to the curative 
qualities of the waters. In a generally healthy climate like that of Jamaica, 
where comparatively few people suffer from the ailments for which the Milk 
River Hath is a remedy, there is no chance of any large expenditure on bath- 
ing or lodging accommodation being remunerative. The charges, however, are 
extremely reasona! le and the relief, if not the cure, is almost certain. For 



4° 



PARISHES OF JAMAICA. 



occupation there are fishing and rowing with now and then a shot at an alli- 
gator. 

Several places in Clarendon have an interest of their own to the student of 
Jamaica history. At Carlisle Bay in 1694 the local militia gallantly repulsed 
a strong force of French invaders who had previously devastated a large tract 
of richly-cultivated land in what is now the Parish of St. Thomas. At Sutton's 
about a mile south of Chapelton, occurred in 1690 the first really formidable 
outbreak among the slaves in Jamaica. Morgan's Valley serves to recall the 
name of Sir Henry Morgan, the redoubtable buccaneer, who was Lieutenant- 
Governor of the Island in the latter part of the seventeenth century. 




MANDEVILLE. 



The last of the country parishes, taking the circuit of the Island in the order 
adopted in these pages, is 

ST. CATHERINE. 

The tourists in this parish will undoubtedly be centred in Spanish Town, 
founded by the Spaniards and known to them by the name St. J ago de la 
Vega, St. James of the Plain, so called to distinguish it from other places named 
after the Patron Saint of Spain. Spanish Town is between twelve and thirteen 
miles from Kingston, and is reached either by road or rail. From the time 
of the English conquest of Jamaica until 1872, this interesting little city was 
the capital town of the colony. In the centre of it is the Square, flanked on 
the side by "The King's House," built in 1762, for many years the official 



PARISHES OF JAMAICA. 4 1 

residence of the Governor and probably the finest building of its kind in the 
West Indies. Opposite the King's House is the former Legislative Hall, where 
for 200 years the House of Assembly held its meetings. On the north side of 
the square, in a handsome temple, is a magnificent statue of Rodney by Bacon, 
which was erected to commemorate the great victory, in 1781, of that Admiral 
over the French fleet under Count deGrasse, which saved the British West 
Indies from possible conquest ; on either side of the statue are two long brass 
guns which were captured from the French Admiral's ship in the same battle. 
One of the most unpopular acts of Sir John Peter Grant, when Governor, was 
the removal of this statue to Kingston, when the seat of Government and 
most of the public offices were transferred thither from Spanish Town in 1872. 
This act caused a feeling of dissatisfaction for seventeen years, until in 1889, 
the statue was restored to its former position, under its old cupola in the 
Public Square of Spanish Town, amid great rejoicings. It is said that the 
Mango, now so common a fruit in the West Indies, is another trophy of this 
victory, some young trees, found in one of the French ships, having been 
planted in Jamaica. It is even said that some large trees growing at Berk- 
shire Hall, not far from Linstead, are " original trees." This seems hardly likely, 
but it may be that they are closely descended from the trees brought by Lord 
Rodney. 

Opposite the Temple of Rodney and forming the quadrangle with a pretty 
public garden in the centre are the Town Hall, the Court House and the 
Government Savings Bank. 

The Cathedral dedicated to Saint Catherine is a building of some preten- 
sions and by no means devoid of interest on many accounts. It is supposed 
to stand on the foundation of the Spanish Red Cross Church of St. Peter, 
which was wantonly destroyed by the English troops, on their first entry into 
Saint Jago de la Vega. The present building takes the place of the earlier 
one, built in the reign of Queen Anne, which was irreparably injured in the 
hurricane of 1712. Some of the monuments, tablets and slabs are older, and 
are extremely interesting. The church is paved with grave-stones, amongst 
which are those of persons who were eminent in their own times, and whose 
names are still remembered by posterity. Some of the grave-stones are specially 
interesting to Archeologists. There is one to the memory of three of a family 
named Assam, who had for their crest three asses engraven on the stone. 
Another makes it appear that an eminent man (Colbeck of St. Dorothy) died 
-"amid great applause." A recent re-seating of the Cathedral has hidden many 
of these slabs, but this obscurity is compensated for by the preservation of the 
inscriptions, which were being obliterated by rough treatment and the tramp 
of feet. 

The Cathedral has a beautiful east, window, some line oak carvings and 
.several admirably executed pieces of Sculpture, the most striking o\ these being 
those erected to the memory of the Marl and Countess o\ Effingham, sir 
Basil Kerth, Major-General Selwyn and the Countess o\ Elgin. 

Among other places of interesl in St. Catherine are the Vale o( Guanaboa ; 



4 2 



PARISHES OF JAMAICA. 



Port Henderson, with its Mineral Springs and Bath, a favourite holiday resort of 
the people of Kingston and Spanish Town ; on the hill at Port Henderson is 
Rodney's "Lookout" from which the Admiral "watched the adjacent sea"; 
Apostles' Battery ; Green Bay, Fort Augusta ; Passage Fort, where the English 
conquerors first landed ; the Great Salt Pond ; Old Harbour, which was a 
thriving port in the days of Spanish occupation, and which, after being closed 
for many years, has been reopened to the great advantage of the Island ; and 
Linstead, an inland town, the centre of rich and fertile districts. Between Linstead 
and Spanish Town, through a lovely gorge, known as the Bog Walk, flows the Rio 
Cobre. Few parts of Jamaica are more beautiful, and few will better repay a 




visit than the Bog Walk. It has been the theme of much descriptive writing, 
but there is a richness and a subtle delicacy about it which defy the power 
of the pen properly to portray them. 

An exceedingly comfortable and well-conducted hotel has recently been 
built at Spanish Town on the banks of the Rio Cobre, from which it takes 
its name. There are also private boarding-houses ; living at Spanish Town is 
cheap and good, the temperature is not excessively hot, whilst all the year 
round the nights are cool. Spanish Town, in short, replete with historic associ- 
ations and surrounded by natural charms in endless variety, quite justifies all 
that has been said, or written, in its praise. 



COLUMBUS AND JAMAICA. 



'-pHE main events in the life of Columbus have recently been made familiar to 
all readers of current literature, and will only be summarised here for the 
purpose of connecting Jamaica with the celebration of the fourth centenary of the 
discovery of the Western continent. Born in Genoa in 1436, Columbus — we use 
the anglicised form of his name by which he is most widely known — early 
embraced the life of a sailor, having previously studied at the University of Pavia 
" geography, cosmography, geometry, astronomy and the nautical sciences." In 
1470 he married the daughter of Palestrello, a Portuguese navigator, and settled at 
Porto Santo, an island off the Western coast of Spain. Starting from his island 
home, expeditions were made from time to time to the Mediterranean and to the 
coast of Guinea, and were followed in 1477 by a voyage round Iceland. 

Meanwhile the invention of printing by Gutenberg had given wide circulation 
to the ancient speculations as to the existence of a vast continent beyond the 
Pillars of Hercules, and to the conjectures of Greek students as to the shape of the 
earth. Reminiscences of the voyages and travels of Marco Polo, which were first 
told during his imprisonment at Genoa, together with theories about the remains 
of vegetable matter, unknown on the Eastern continent, which were at times 
washed ashore at Porto Santo, combined to arouse both the curiosity and the 
enthusiasm of Columbus, and to create in his mind a belief that the shores of 
Asia, with its fabulous stores of wealth, its ivory, its gold, its spices, could be 
reached by navigating to the West. 

The idea once entertained was never abandoned, in spite of difficulties and 
opposition which would have effectually checked the ardour of many an intrepid 
man. There is something almost ludicrous in the picture of Columbus, going from 
monarch to monarch and from court to court, begging assistance to discover a 
new and mighty continent. His fellow-countrymen in Genoa declined the honour ; 
King John, of Portugal, patiently listened to his plans and carefully investigated 
his charts and then, with a meanness which is scarcely credible, privately 
despatched a fleet of his own, hoping to gain for himself and his countr) the 
credit of a discovery, to the belief in the possibility of which he was Columbus's 
first royal convert. But the stars in their courses fought against the king; the elements, 
as though in disgust with treachery and dishonour, drove back the Portuguese 
fleet, crippled, panic stricken and determined never again to seek the shores of 
India by sailing towards the setting sun. From Portugal Columbus turned to 
Spain, to France, to England, for help. At last, after repeated disappointments 
and rebuffs, the Spanish Sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabella, espoused his cause. 



44 



COLUMBUS AND JAMAICA. 



and on Friday the 3d of August, 1492, at the age of fifty-six, a time of life when 
many men think their best work is done, Columbus sailed for the West, with a 
fleet of three small vessels and a crew of one hundred and twenty men. 

The details of this memorable voyage are beyond the intention of these pages. 
But, if we are constrained to admire the persistent determination with which 
Columbus urged the adoption of plans which appeared to be little else than the 
wild dreams of a visionary, still more must we admire the indomitable energy and 
the constant faith which brought himself within sight of the land of promise and 
expectation, himself alone calm and confident, his companions on the verge of 
mutiny, annoyed and disgusted at being so often deceived by the false appearance 
of approaching land. But it was land, not indeed the Eastern extremity of an 
old continent, but the out-port of a new. On the 8th of October, singing birds 
fluttered amidst and around the sails of the ships, and the atmosphere was redolent 




with the odours of the shore ; three days later, in the green rush of sea- weed 
which floated past their ships, the sailors picked up a stick, quaintly-carved and 
plainly the work of intelligent men, and a thorn branch covered with the red 
and ripe berries which seemed a proof positive that bountiful nature was making 
some neighbouring land bring forth her increase. On that same night Columbus, 
keeping lonely watch and eagerly peering through the dim darkness which was 
ahead of him, discerned in the distance the faint gleams of a moving light. At 
two o'clock on the following morning, the 12th of October, 1492, doubt and 
uncertainty ceased as a gun from the Pinta fired the welcome signal that land was 
in sight. Then, soon after the dawn of day, in the bright, bracing purity of a 
tropical morning, followed the landing, the solemn act of thanksgiving to God as 
Columbus and his companions knelt on the long-looked-for beach. The natives 
called the island on which they landed Guanihani ; Columbus called it San 
Salvador ; it is now known as Watling's Island, one of the Bahama group, in lat. 24 



COLUMBUS AND JAMAICA. 45 

N. and long. 74 W. Later on in this same voyage, Columbus sighted Cuba and 
Haiti, on the latter of which he left a small garrison, and then returned to 
Europe in triumph, taking with him Indians and curiosities and various specimens 
of Western produce. On the 15th of March, 1493, Columbus anchored in the 
harbour of Palos, from which six months before he had sailed, full of hope and 
confidence, though amidst the gloom and despondency of the little village, the 
people of which saw nothing but calamity or death in some hideous shape as the 
fate of their friends and relatives, who formed no inconsiderable part of the 
expedition. The return was the signal for royal attentions and honours, for the 
congratulations of the people, for boundless admiration, for unlimited adulation, 
for all that wealth and the world could give in tribute to hard-earned success and 
well-merited triumph. It is pleasing to note this bright oasis in a life of storm 
and toil, where ambition was for a time at ease, where success was recognised and 
rewarded, a life which envy, jealousy and detraction had hardly begun to blight 
and embitter. Those who had once been his enemies now posed as his friends, 
but only for a time, for he had soon to learn by sad experience, that sometimes 
it is wise to reflect on the truth which underlies the aphorism of the philosopher 
who used to say, "Look upon your friends with the thought that they may 
one day become your enemies." 

On the 25th of September, 1493, Columbus left the Bay of Cadiz on his 
second voyage of discovery, and on the 3d of May, 1494, while sailing in a 
southerly direction from Cuba, he came in sight of " the blue summit of a vast 
and lofty island at a great distance, which began to arise like clouds above the 
horizon." Two days later — or possibly on the following day — he anchored in the 
harbour off the town, now known as Port Maria, on the northern coast of 
Jamaica. Some slight resistance was threatened by the native Indians who flocked 
in their canoes around the strange Spanish ship, but they were soon appeased and 
Columbus anchored in the harbour, which he thought the most beautiful of all he 
had seen and to which he gave the name of Santa Gloria, a name which can 
hardly be said to have survived its bestowal. Leaving his anchorage to seek more 
sheltered waters, Columbus put out to sea and sailed a few miles in a westerly 
direction to Ora Cabecca, now written Oracabessa.* The landing was not effected 
without opposition and protest on the part of the natives, who were treated to a 
shower of arrows from the Spanish cross-bows, and terrified into confused flight by a 
huge bloodhound, keen to scent human blood. On reaching the shore, Columbus. 
in the name of Ferdinand and Isabella, took formal possession of his new discov- 
ery, which he called Santiago, though it has always been known by its Indian 
name of Xaymaca, modernised in spelling and pronunciation into Jamaica. A 
few days sufficed to repair his ships and to establish friendly intercourse with the 
Indians, and again the voyage was continued as far as Montego Bay, called by 
Columbus Huentiempo (i. e. Fair Weather) Bay, because the wind was favourable 
for his return to Cuba. Two months later he sailed leisurely along the southern 



* There is some discrepancy of opinion as to the exacl places of anchoring and lao ling. Some 
authorities substitute St. Ann's Hay and Puerto Bueno (the modern village of Rio Bueno) for Port Maris 
and Oracabessa. 



4 6 



COLUMBUS AND JAMAICA. 



coast of Jamaica, receiving kindness and hospitality, but making no attempt to 
explore the country. At Old Harbour Bay the chief, or cacique, boarded his ship 
accompanied by many members of his family and staff, and, in the course of an 
interesting interview, proposed that he himself and all his family should return 
with Columbus to Spain. The offer was courteously declined, and the journey was 
continued till on the 19th of August, 1494, Columbus passed out of sight of 
Jamaica, to the south-eastern extremity of which, now known as Morant Point, 
he gave the name of Cape Farol. 

Thus ended the first visit of Columbus to Jamaica; his second visit was 
paid under very different circumstances. 




RIO COBRE RIVER. 



Leaving Jamaica in 1494, Columbus did not revisit it till 1503. During 
the interval between these years, his position in royal and popular favour had 
greatly changed. In a third expedition, commenced in 1498, he had discov- 
ered Trinidad and explored the Gulf of Paria. Returning to Hispaniola (Haiti) 
and Cuba, he found that the Spanish settlers, to whom had fallen the original 
colonisation of those islands, had employed harsh measures for the enslavement 
of the Indians, and were quarrelling for supremacy among themselves. Colum- 
bus on the one hand protested against this action, while on the other hand 
his followers brought charges of incompetence and cruelty against him. Too 
much credence was given to these latter reports. People thought that Colum- 
bus's work for Spain was finished. It was little likely that, at upwards of 
sixty years of age, he would be physically capable of crossing any more 



COLUMBUS AND JAMAICA. 47 

unknown seas, or of setting foot on any more untrodden shores. The Spanish 
Court began to regret that it had showered privileges, powers, dignities, on a 
man of foreign, obscure origin and uncultured manners. Thus calumnies were 
eagerly listened to and readily believed. By Royal authority an investigation 
was ordered, which was entrusted to Don Francisco de Bobadilla, a self-opinionated 
and ambitious man. On reaching Hispaniola, Bobadilla seized on the Government, 
gave a free pardon to all rebels, convicts and criminals who had been imprisoned 
by order of Columbus and finally, without going through the form of a trial, sent 
Columbus and his brother back to Spain in chains. 

The history of this period is almost too dramatic and exciting to bear summar- 
ising. We have the order given that the chains should be put on, the shrinking, 
born alike of pity and of reverence, from carrying out such an order, the final 
adjustment of the irons by a "graceless and shameless" criminal. "I knew the 
rascal," says Las Casas, "and I think his name was Espinosa." Then the return 
to Spain in charge of Alonzo de Villajo, an honest, kindly fellow, who did his 
unpleasant duty in a pleasant way. He would have struck off the irons, but his 
prisoner forbade him. It was under the authority of the Spanish sovereigns that 
the fetters were there, and by no other authority should they be removed. Home 
again in Spain, there occurred a re -action in his favour. His enemies had gone 
so far in their persecution that a strongly-felt sympathy was stirred up in his 
favour. The voice of the people dictated the action of the throne. Columbus was 
liberated and Bobadilla was dismissed and recalled, perishing in a storm at sea on 
his way back to Spain. Columbus, however, in spite of royal promises, was not 
reinstated in the privileges and dignities of which he had been deprived. Boba- 
dilla was superseded in the government by Don Nicholas de Ovando, and Colum- 
bus, though otherwise fairly treated, had to be satisfied with a vague promise that 
at some not distant date, he should resume supreme command of the lands he had 
discovered. 

But, though shelved and condemned to temporary inactivity, the mind of the 
great discoverer was busily at work. Vasco de Gama had rounded the Cape of 
Good Hope and had opened the long-wished-for route to India, so that the wealth 
and treasures of the East were pouring into the hands of the adventurous Portu- 
guese. The old enthusiastic spirit was again on fire, and Columbus was full of 
the idea that, somewhere in the far West of the Caribbean Sea, somewhere 
amongst these new lands of his, he could find a strait which would be a western 
path to the Indian Seas. 

Preparations being completed, Columbus started on his fourth and last voyage, 
with a fleet of four ships and crews of 150 men in all, on the 9th of May. 1502. 
He was then sixty-six years of age, and bore in his body traces of the toil and 
trouble of a hard life. But more trouble was to come, and Jamaica was to be the 
scene of its patient endurance. With the details of the earlier portion of the voyage we 
are not here concerned, and pass on to the 23d of June, 1503. when, as he him- 
self wrote, with "his people dismayed and down hearted, almost all his anchors 
lost and his vessels bored as full of holes as a honey-comb," driven by opposing 
winds and currents, Columbus put into Puerto Bueno (Dry Harbour). On the 



4* 



COLUMBUS AND JAMAICA. 



following day, failing to find either sufficient food or fresh water, he sailed east- 
ward to another harbour, since known as Don Christopher's Cove. His forlorn 
and desperate condition is thus described by his greatest historian: "His ships, 
reduced to mere wrecks, could no longer keep the sea, and were ready to sink 
even in port. He ordered them, therefore, to be run aground within a bow-shot 




If4 BOG WALK, RIO COBRE RIVER. 

of the shore, and fastened together, side by side. They soon filled with water to 
the decks. Thatched cabins were then erected at the prow and stern for the 
accommodation of the crews, and the wreck was placed in the best possible state 
of defence. Thus castled in the sea, he wished to be able to repel any sudden 
attack of the natives, and at the same time to keep his men from roving about 
the neighbourhood and indulging in their usual excesses. No one was allowed to 
go on shore without especial license, and the utmost precaution was taken to pre- 



COLUMBUS AND JAMAICA. 49 

vent any offence being given to the Indians. Any exasperation of them might be 
fatal to the Spaniards in the present forlorn situation. A firebrand thrown into 
their wooden fortress might wrap it in flames and leave them defenceless amidst 
hostile thousands." 

Fortunately the natives turned out to be well-disposed to their visitors, and 
for a time there was little difficulty in obtaining, by exchange of ornaments and 
other trifles of European manufacture, sufficient food to support the shipwrecked 
crews. But the supply was not inexhaustible. The country indeed was fertile, but 
on the other hand, the population was large, and Columbus's men were both 
hungry and fastidious. Dreading the time when the supplies of the district should 
be exhausted and his followers reduced to famine, Columbus determined on what 
we may consider the first exploration of Jamaica. Diego Mendez, one of the 
bravest and most loyal of his officers, was sent on a foraging expedition with three 
other men. They travelled along the coast and a few miles inland through the 
present parishes of St. Ann, Trelawny, St. James and Hanover. Friendly terms 
were made with different chiefs — the names of two of these, Huarco and Ameyro, 
are preserved — and a regular supply of food was guaranteed, in exchange for fish- 
hooks, knives, beads, combs and such-like articles. The food to be obtained would 
largely consist of cassava bread, fish, birds and small animals somewhat resembling 
rabbits. 

Mendez returned from his mission, only to be called upon for more import- 
ant services. The supply of provisions was of course an immediate necessity, 
but the greatest need was that of means to get back to Spain, or at any rate 
to get into communication with Spaniards who could send ships to the rescue of 
the wrecked mariners. Accordingly, with a small mixed crew of Spaniards and 
Indians, Mendez was sent in a canoe to Hispaniola to seek assistance from Ovando 
and to continue his journey to Spain with despatches from Columbus. The first 
attempt to accomplish this hazardous undertaking was a failure. Mendez was 
captured by Indians and barely escaped with his life, his companions being put 
to death. The second attempt was successful, but many weary weeks elapsed 
before Columbus heard of its success. In the meantime his troubles rapidly 
increased. In addition to the ordinary infirmities of old age and the effects of a 
life of perils and exposure, he lay helplessly crippled with gout on board his 
stranded ship. His men lost faith in him. He had been banished, they said. 
from Spain. His ships had been forbidden to anchor in the harbours of 
Hispaniola. Mendez, it was true, had gone, but he had been sent on a secret 
mission to procure pardon for Columbus, who was otherwise exiled for life to 
Jamaica. If he were willing to attempt to escape his age and sickness 
incapacitated him from risking a voyage in an Indian canoe, the only available 
vessel of transport. They must take the matters into their own hands and at 
any rate secure their own personal safety. They were beyond doubt ungrateful 
and unreasonable, but men contemplating mutiny take little account either of 
gratitude or of reason. The mutiny was headed by two brothers. Francisco and 
Diego de I'orras, the former of whom was captain of one of the caravels and t he- 
latter occupied the position of bursar and accountant general o\ the expedition. 



SO COLUMBUS AND JAMAICA. 

It is useless to argue with determined men. Columbus was for a moment in per- 
sonal danger but his life was saved by the intervention of his brother. The 
mutineers were permitted to embark in ten canoes, which had been purchased 
from the Indians. They coasted the north of Jamaica, sailing in a westerly 
direction, landing here and there, pillaging, outraging, representing themselves as 
acting under the orders of Columbus. Two attempts to cross to Hispaniola 
failed and the mutineers "wandered from village to village, a dissolute and law- 
less gang, supporting themselves by fair means or foul, according as they met 
with kindness or hostility, and passing like a pestilence through the Island." To 
return to Columbus, the weight of his troubles was daily increasing. No news 




BLACK RIVER. 



came of, or from, Mendez ; the supplies of provisions began gradually to decrease, 
until actual starvation was within easy reach. Under these circumstances it was 
that Columbus had resort to what has since become, in fiction if not in fact, a 
hackneyed and familiar trick. His knowledge of astronomy enabled him to pre- 
dict that an eclipse of the moon would take place at a certain hour ; this 
eclipse, he represented, was to be a sign that his great Deity was angry with the 
people for not continuing to supply him with food. The eclipse came ; the 
Indians were amazed, alarmed, terrified. Later on, apparently in reply to the 
prayers of Columbus, the moon resumed her wonted functions and a plentiful 
supply of provisions was secured for the future. 

Months passed before news came from Mendez. At last a ship anchored 
some distance from the shore and put off a boat. It promised badly for 



COLUMBUS AND JAMAICA. 5 1 

Columbus when, as the boat approached his wreck, he caught sight of the ill- 
omened features of Diego de Escobar, whom years ago he had condemned to death, 
who had been pardoned by Bobadilla and partly in consequence of whose false 
and vindictive evidence Columbus had been displaced from his command in 
1500. The ill-omen proved true ; for Escobar's relief consisted of a cask of wine, 
.a flitch of bacon, and a letter containing vague promises of future succour. The 
wine and the bacon were finished long before the promises were kept. Escobar's 
functions, in fact, had been those of a spy, not of a friend. 

Columbus took advantage of this re-opening of communications with the 
outer world to bring back into allegiance his rebel followers who were dis- 
heartened and worn out by the miseries and toils of a lawless and predatory life. 
Most of them would long before have willingly returned but they were prevented 
from doing so by the elder Porras. A sort of conference was held at the Indian 
Village of Maima — now known as Mammee Bay — a conference which ended in a free 
fight in which the rebels were defeated and Francisco de Porras was taken prisoner. 

At last suspense was at an end, as two vessels were seen entering the 
harbour, one sent from Spain by the faithful Mendez, the other from His- 
paniola by the treacherous Ovando, whose neglect of Columbus had so roused 
public feeling against him that he was driven to assume a virtue, if he had it 
not, and to send genuine help to the unfortunate discoverer. 

Thus on the 28th of June, 1504, after a visit, which was almost an imprison- 
ment of upwards of twelve months, Columbus left Jamaica. There is much that 
is pathetic about this twelve months' stay in Jamaica. It is extremely doubtful 
whether Columbus ever left the shelter of his stranded ships. He was an old man 
when he came ; toil, injustice, anxiety, disappointment had intensified the natural 
infirmities of old age ; gout kept him crippled in his cabin, and leaving Jamaica, 
he went home to die. 

Coldly received by the people for the pride of whose nationality he had 
•done so much, almost friendless, poverty-stricken, his health ruined and his spirits 
crushed, he lingered for two years before death mercifully set him free to 
-embark on the last and greatest of all voyages. 

Oh strong soul, by what shore 
Tarriest thou now ? For that force, 
Surely, has not been left vain ! 
Somewhere, surely, afar, 
In the sounding labour-house vast 
Of being, is practised that strength 
Zealous, beneficent, firm. 

Columbus died at Seville on the 20th of May, 1506, in the seventieth 
year of his age, not knowing, even to the last, that he was the discoverer o\ a 
new and vast continent, which was to take its name not from him but from one 
of his companions. 

Beyond allusions and references in books and pamphlets, Jamaica contained 
no memorial of Columbus. Next year will see the tour hundredth anniversary 
of its discovery, possibly the year will not be allowed to pass without some- 
thing tangible being done to commemorate the person of the discoverer. 



LATER HISTORY. 



JAMAICA, thus discovered and acquired, remained in the possession of Spain 
for upwards of a century and a half. It has been said that the transac- 
tions of the Spaniards during this period, as far as Jamaica is concerned, have 
scarcely obtained the notice of history ; to this may be added that, when the 
Island was added to the British possessions in the West, there were few traces 
that any solid and reasonable effort had been made by the first conquerors of 
Jamaica to utilise their opportunity for the good of the conquered province. 
This period is mainly memorable for the complete annihilation, often by methods 
pitilessly cruel and revoltingly ruthless, of the aboriginal inhabitants of Jamaica. 
Of these interesting people a few words may be said — interesting, because, in 
the imperfect records which survive their destruction, we learn little but what 
is good of them. 

In speaking of the aboriginal inhabitants of Jamaica, it must be borne in 
mind that, at the time of the discovery of the West Indies, including in that 
term the whole of the islands lying in, or around, the Caribbean Archipelago, 
there were two separate races of Indians inhabiting them. One of these races, 
called the Caribbs, inhabited the Windward Islands and the Southern Antilles ; 
they were a hardy, warlike people, and their descendants, having survived the 
influences of European civilization, still live in some islands, e. g. St. Vincent, 
Trinidad and Dominica. The inhabitants of the more Western islands, includ- 
ing Jamaica, were of a far gentler type ; they cannot be accused of being 
actually deficient in courage, for they offered a certain amount of resistance to 
Columbus and to his successors, but their virtues were of a milder, quieter 
kind than those usually attributed to savage tribes. They were not cannibals ; 
they do not seem to have been treacherous, ferocious or cruel ; they were relig- 
ious, with perhaps an unusually small element of superstition in their religion ; 
they had certain quaint ideas about the Creation of the World and a tradition 
about a Deluge. They believed in a future state of existence, the highest 
happiness in which may be epitomised in familiar words as being in the 
possession of 

u Bright maidens and unfailing vines." 

They had a fixed form of Government, simple, patriarchal and dignified. They 
cultivated the ground just as much as was necessary for the provision of food ; 
they had a game called Bato, a sort of primitive foot-ball, and they smoked 
tobacco, using frequently that quaint form of pipe, resembling in shape a 
schoolboy's wooden catapult, and consisting of one straight tube, branching off 



LATER HISTORY. 53 

into two other tubes, which were inserted up the nostrils. They were kind 
to each other and hospitable to strangers, and on the whole appear to have 
been a harmless, simple-minded folk ; perhaps, it may be said, the world would 
have been none the worse for the survival of this race and for the extermina- 
tion of some other race less creditable to humanity. 

Turning now from the original inhabitants to the first conquerors of Jamaica, 
the actual remains at the present day of the Spanish occupation are almost 
entirely confined to a few names and a few stones. The site of the first 
capital of the Island, Sevilla Nueva, founded by Diego Columbus, son of the 
discoverer, is marked only by a few stones on the estate of Seville, near St. 
Ann's Bay. In the town of Porus, we have perpetuated the name of the two 




BRIDGE ON RIO COBRE RIVER. 



brothers Porras, who headed the mutiny against Columbus. In the Pedro Plains 
and the Pedro River, survives the name of Don Pedro de Esquimel, one of 
the most brutal and cruel of the oppressors of the Indians ; and many other 
names, both of Spanish and of Indian origin, remain, among the latter being 
the name Jamaica itself. The abandonment of Sevilla Nueva. for reasons which 
can only be conjectured, led to the settlement and building of Spanish Town, 
or, as it was then called, of St. Jago de la Vega : but the Spanish Town 
which we now know contains few traces, if any, of its original buildings. 
The Spaniards themselves seem to have been happy and contented. The climate 
was pleasant and unoppressive, the soil was rich and yielded delicious fruits in 
abundance ; if the Spaniards in Jamaica did not make the huge fortunes acquired 



54 



LATER HISTORY. 



by their countrymen in Cuba or Hayti, or by those who settled in the mining- 
districts of Mexico and South America, at any rate they were satisfied to live 
a lazy, luxurious, lotus-eating existence, far away from home troubles and tur- 
moils, looking on Jamaica rather as their actual, than as their adopted home. 

To inquire minutely into all the causes which lead to the acquisition of 
Jamaica by Great Britain, would necessitate a close review of the relations 
between England and Spain during the first half century of the Stuart dynasty. 
It is enough here to state that James I. and Charles I. had both given way 
too tamely and too timidly to Spanish claims and pretensions, and that the 
honour of England, the protection of her commerce and the safety of her sub- 
jects made it imperative on Cromwell's Government to protect British interests 




MONTEGO BAY. (MOONLIGHT.) 



and lives in the West Indies. Accordingly an expedition was equipped and 
armed, and left England in the Fall of 1654. The general instructions given 
to the leaders of this Expedition were "to obtain establishment in that part of 
the West Indies which is possessed by the Spaniards." Admiral Penn, the 
father of Penn the Pennsylvania Quaker, was in command of the fleet, and 
General Venables of the land forces. The history of this Expedition is a. 
record of incompetence and vacillation, of bad generalship and disgraceful man- 
agement, and the only wonder seems to be that the British troops were not 
ignominiously driven out of Jamaica, as they had previously been expelled from 
S. Domingo. Any sort of organised resistance on the part of the Spaniards 
would have routed and annihilated the demoralised forces of the invaders. This 



LATER HISTORY. 55 

resistance was not forthcoming. After a miserable pretence of war, discreditable 
alike to victor and to vanquished, Articles of Capitulation were signed on the 
nth of May, 1655. These Articles laid down that any one who wished to 
leave the island might do so under certain humiliating conditions, while those 
who remained were promised their lives and the benefit and protection of the 
laws of England. While considering the terms of this Treaty, the Spaniards 
took the opportunity of removing from the Capital as much of their property 
and stock as possible, so that when the British troops entered St. J ago de la 
Vega, they entered a deserted and half-ruined city. Then followed distress, 
hardships, insurbordination, famine and pestilence among the troops, while the 
fugitive Spaniards were attempting to re-organise themselves in the North of 
the Island and in mountains in the centre. Although, then, the Expedition, 
taken as a whole, was a signal failure, and although Penn and Venables were 
rightly committed to the Tower on their return home, "for having deserted 
the forces committed to their charge," yet Jamaica was taken and added to 
the British possessions. Cromwell, disappointed and disgusted at the meagre 
result of his efforts to break the Spanish power in the West Indies, neverthe- 
less determined to make the best of the newly-acquired colony. Venables was 
succeeded by General Fortescue, who soon fell a victim to a prevailing epidemic. 
The troops seem to have lost heart and pluck, and, though strongly re-inforced 
in the following year, the British power was held by so slight a thread, that 
the old Spanish Governor, Don Arnoldi Sasi, felt justified in attempting to 
regain the island. The attempt was made and failed, for the British troops 
under General D'Oyley, Fortescue's successor, inflicted a severe defeat on Don 
Sasi's forces in October, 1658, at Rio Nueva, in St. Mary's Parish. After 
some months of desultory kind of guerilla warfare, Sasi and his few remaining 
followers managed to make their escape for Cuba from a Bay on the North- 
ern Coast, which has since been known as Runaway Bay. Cromwell died some 
six weeks before the victory at Rio Nueva, and D'Oyley seems to have been 
left by the Home Authorities to act on his own responsibility. Richard Crom- 
well indeed, during his short Protectorate, declined to restore Jamaica to Spain 
in return for a large sum of money which was offered him, and Charles II., 
soon after his accession to the Throne, was proof against the plausible request 
that Jamaica should be given back to Spain, on the ground that it had been 
taken by the rebel subjects of the King of England, contrary to the treaty of 
peace between the two Crowns. This, however, happened in England, and the 
second Charles had been twelve months on the throne before he took any 
official notice of Jamaica. In the interim D'Oyley had not been idle ; he had 
had a few skirmishes with the remnant of Spanish slaves who had fortified 
themselves in the mountain forests in the centre of the island, and who were 
for years (under the name of Maroons,) independent o\ British rule, ami a 
constant source of trouble to successive administrations. D'Oyley had also sup- 
pressed a mutiny in the ranks of his army, caused by some of the officers 
and men wishing to establish a civil, instead of a military. Government, and 
to devote themselves to .in agricultural career. This period of" Jamaica history 



56 



LATER HISTORY. 



fitly closes with the proclamation of Charles II. as King, and with the appoint- 
ment of General D'Oyley as First Governor of the Colony. The documents 
announcing these events were read at Caguaya, which has since, in commemor- 
ation thereof, been called Port Royal. By royal authority it was decreed that 
a Council of twelve, to be nominated by the Governor, should be appointed 
with power to legislate for the colony. This Council accordingly was nominated, 
Courts of Justice were established, magistrates and judges were appointed, 
English rule and English customs were established, although the island was not 
formally ceded to the British Crown until 1670. 

The conquest, or re-conquest, of Jamaica being thus complete, its history 
for many years is mainly a record of the various steps which, in spite of fre- 









































life, 


















Mm 


m 




S' ; :,.;-; : , : : ; : v-;''-v::S£ 


;-.«/?■ 







■• 



SPANISH TOWN CATHEDRAL. 



quent interruptions and of constant dissensions, raised it to the position it held, 
at the beginning of this century, of a prosperous and wealthy Agricultural 
Colony, Gradually land was appropriated to soldiers who were willing to settle 
down to peaceful pursuits, while numbers were induced, and in some instances 
compelled by political necessities, to come from Great Britain, from Ireland 
and from other West Indian Islands. A remarkably rapid change soon came 
over the local industries. At the time when the English first occupied Jamaica, 
the principal articles of Export consisted of Hides, and of Hog's-butter, 80,000 
hogs being killed every year for the sake of their lard, which, under the name 
of Hog's-butter, was sold at Carthagena. A thriving trade was done in salt, 
there being large salt ponds on the Eastern parts of the Southern coast. The 



LATER HISTORY. 57 

Spaniards had devoted much attention to Cocoa, and almost every species of 
tropical fruit and vegetable grew profusely ; the waters swarmed with fish, and 
the forests abounded in various kinds of dye-woods. In fact there seemed 
at the time a possibility of Jamaica being the scene of a varied and extended 
cultivation. In the early days, however, of this occupation it was found that 
both soil and climate were more adapted for the growth of sugar than those 
of other West India colonies, and almost every other form of cultivation had 
to give way to sugar. The rise and rapid growth of the sugar industry affected 
Jamaica socially as well materially and agriculturally ; for, while English or 
Irish settlers could carry on agricultural pursuits in the cool, bracing, mountain 
districts, they were incapable of hard manual labour in the cane-growing districts 
in the lowlands. Hence it came to pass that the traffic in slaves and the 
system of slavery increased .step by step with the extension of sugar culti- 
vation. From this time dates a long period of material prosperity on the part 
of the owners, whether resident or non-resident, of property, and of almost 
equal misery on the part of the unfortunate labourers. At the same time the 
political Constitution of the Colony was being built up and strengthened. The 
Crown -nominated Council has been mentioned, and in 1664 an Assembly, con- 
sisting of thirty members elected by the people, was constituted, with power to 
pass laws, which, unless confirmed by the King, were only in operation for two 
years. This institution, notwithstanding many impediments and difficulties and in 
spite of constant wranglings and frequent irregularities, continued in existence for 
202 years. The brighter side of the history of the Jamaica Assembly is a 
history of the struggle between popular rights and arbitrary power ; questions 
of privilege were constantly turning up and were discussed and disputed with 
a keenness and a bitterness worthy of the English House of Commons at the 
present day ; the relations between the Council and Assembly were often 
strained to the utmost limits of tension ; on one occasion indeed a member of 
the Council seized the opportunity offered by a state dinner to kill a member 
of the Assembly. Governors, good, bad and indifferent, followed each other in 
quick succession, some such as Lord Windsor, only staying a few months, and 
others, like Sir Thomas Modyford, ruling for more than six years. These were 
rough days and there is reason to believe that Governors were not chosen out 
of any particular regard for their moral character and virtuous living, for we 
find one of them described by a contemporary as being " the most protest 
immoral liver in the world," and another by a friend of Pepys, who was not 
troubled by over-squeamishness, as being "one of the lewdest fellows of the 
age." Taking the early Governors as a whole it would probably be correct 
to say that Jamaica prospered in spite, quite as much as in consequence, of any 
particularly brilliant genius representing the Sovereign power. The agriculturists, 
as a body, the merchants, the buccaneers, rather looked on at, than participated 
in tire game of politics. Fortunes were being made on land and on sea. and 
so long as money was pouring in, it mattered little to planter or merchant 
whether an Assembly had been illegally dismissed or a Governor been guilt} of 
a breach of privilege. 



58 



LATER HISTORY. 



The closing years of the seventeenth century were full of critical events 
in the island story. In 1689 the first, but by no means the last, destructive 
hurricane since the British occupation inflicted much damage on house property 
and growing crops, while in the following year occurred the first really serious 
outbreak, or rebellion, of the slaves. The number of slaves had largely increased 
about this time, as the first Parliament of William and Mary had opened the 
trade to private enterprise. Many men of rank, position and power in their 
native land were captured and condemned to slavery, and, naturally enough, 
resented the compulsory toil and the cruel treatment of the plantations. The 
scene of the outbreak was at Suttons, an estate about a mile from Chapelton, 
and it was only suppressed after considerable bloodshed and loss of property. 




ROARING RIVER. 



Two years later, in 1692, there happened the greatest calamity (elsewhere 
alluded to in these pages) , which has ever befallen Jamaica, namely the earth- 
quake in which the then-wealthy town of Port Royal was almost entirely swal- 
lowed up. This terrible catastrophe has been often described, and no fresh 
description can add to its horrors. The earth was shaken with such violence 
that on all sides were seen and heard the din and confusion caused by falling 
walls and buildings. Wharves, laden with valuable merchandise, private houses 
of wealthy men, merchants' stores together with the Church of the town and 
Government fortifications were all overwhelmed in one common ruin ; as the 
earth opened, and closed again, receiving into its bosom whole streets of houses 
and hundreds of terrified people, so did the sea rise in huge waves, and 



LATER HISTORY. 



59 



sweeping over the ruined and sunken town, complete the devastation. But this 
was not the end ; for many days after, mutilated corpses floated up and down the 
harbour, or lay unburied on the shore, and the pestilence, which generated from 
these putrefying corpses, claimed almost as many victims as had the earthquake 
shocks. Nor was the destruction confined to Port Royal, for nearly every dis- 
trict in the Island suffered, some more seriously than others, but all to an 
extent which seems incredible. One familiar, and we believe fully-substantiated, 
case of extraordinary escape must not be omitted from any record of this 
dreadful visitation. At Green Bay, on the opposite shore to Port Royal, is the 
tomb of Lewis Galdy who died in 1739. The inscription on the tomb records 
that Galdy was swallowed down by one earthquake shock, and that, before life was 
extinct, a second shock cast him up again into the sea, whence he escaped by 
swimming to a boat. He lived for nearly a half a century after this 
adventure, was a member of Assembly and a respected merchant in Port 
Royal. 




PORT ROYAL FROM CLOCK TOWER. 



In the century succeeding the earthquake there is a wonderful sameness, 
though by no means a monotony or an absence of excitement, in the history of 
Jamaica. The political and legislative record is one of constant squabbling, 
impeachments, breaches of privilege and abrupt dismissals of Assemblies. The 
placidity and repose of tropical life were in turn and often disturbed by hurri- 
cane, earthquake, fire, pestilence and famine. There were military and naval 
troubles with the French and the Spaniards, the most notable perhaps being in 
1702, when Benbow lost his life, and in 1784 when Rodney, by a brilliant 
victory over l)e Grasse, scattered the Fleet containing the French troops intended 
for the invasion of Jamaica. The Maroons, still unconquered, carried on their 
guerilla warfare and plundered the settlers' plantations, there were numerous in- 
surrections, some more formidable than Others, of slaves in various parishes of 



6o 



LATER HISTORY. 



the island, while the exciting life of the pirate, or privateer, increased the 
wealth of Kingston and of Port Royal. Existence, amid the stirring scenes and 
thrilling incidents of this sort, could surely be neither dull nor uneventful. The 
space, however, at our disposal compels us to hurry over this period thus briefly, 
and to pass on to the great event which influenced Jamaica more even than 
war, hurricane or legislative squabbling could do ; we refer to the Agitation 




ROADWAY. CANE RIVER. 



which culminated in the Abolition of the vile system of slavery. It is impos- 
sible to fix the exact date when this struggle commenced, for, during the 
earliest days when the traffic in human flesh was recognised as legal, there were 
not wanting men in England, and elsewhere, who were found to protest against 
it. The day is happily past when it is necessary to denounce so hideous a 
traffic, and happily, too, bitter feelings, inherited from a bitter past, are rapidly 



LATER HISTORY. 6 1 

dying away. A few figures will show the magnitude of this Trade, as far as 
Jamaica is concerned. Between the years 1700 and 1786 no less than 610,000 
slaves were landed in Jamaica, of whom 160,000 were re-exported to other 
parts of the West Indies or to America. Thus more than 5,000 were added every 
year to the existing number. The reason for this large and constant increase 
may partly be that the amount of land under cultivation was being greatly 
extended, but it was certainly partly due to the hard labour and harsh treat- 
ment which retarded the natural increase of the population and to the fact that 
the number of male slaves imported was much in excess of the number of 
female. Added to this must not be forgotten the heavy mortality among the 
slave population on the not infrequent occasions of famine, pestilence or hurri- 
cane. That the treatment was cruel goes without saying. A cruel system can 
only be worked by cruel means and enforced by cruel laws, and the ridicu- 
lous fallacies by which its upholders endeavoured to defend it may fitly be taken 
as illustrations of the depth of absurdity and of groundless, or false, statements to 
which the champions of a wicked cause are bound to be driven in fighting against 
truth and light. 

Perhaps the first definite step in the direction of Emancipation was a 
decision, in the reign of William and Mary, of the Chief Justice (Holt) of 
England to the effect that " one may not be a slave in England." However, 
this and similar decisions failed to arouse Englishmen to a sense of the iniquities 
which were being prepetrated under the protection of the British Flag. In 1765, 
Granville Sharpe was led to take up the subject, and in 1772, by his efforts, he 
gained the judicial decision that "as soon as any slave sets his foot on English 
ground he is free." One cannot help wondering how this decision did not at 
once, and permanently, settle the question, for it seems natural to draw the con- 
clusion that if the possession of slaves was wrong and illegal in England, it was 
theoretically equally wrong and illegal in other parts of the British Empire, 
that, if the putting the foot on British soil in Kent or Devonshire could bestow 
freedom, the same privilege belonged to British soil in Jamaica or Trinidad. But 
the day of Justice was still far distant. Reports of cruelty and of revolting ill- 
treatment roused indeed the heart of philanthropic England, but the West Indian 
interest was in those days, politically, commercially and socially, far more powerful 
than any sentiment however philanthrophic, or any sense of justice however 
deeply-rooted. Other causes too combined to impede the progress of the 
agitation. The French Revolution, with its indirect, but terrible, consequences 
in Hayti, was not the least among these, while Royal influence was not wanting 
against the cause of Right, the Duke of Clarence, afterwards William IV., having 
been in Jamaica, and retaining a strong feeling of regard for the slave-holders. 
Resolutions were moved from time to time in both Houses of Parliament, but only to 
be lost, although the number of adherents to the cause was daily increasing in the 
country. At length in 1807 a measure was passed abolishing the Trade in 
slaves from the 1st of March, 1808. This measure, while preventing further 
importations, did not affect the condition of the existing slaves. Meanwhile 
the Jamaica Legislature had seen the necessity of action of some sort, and several 



62 



LATER HISTORY. 



Acts were passed with the professed object of ameliorating and modifying the 
conditions of slavery. The first important step, after the suppression of the 
Trade, was the compulsory Registration of slaves, the intention of which was 
to make it impossible to secretly revive the slave Trade by clandestine impor- 
tations. Amid much opposition and a good deal of undignified protest on the 
part of the Assembly, this Act was passed, care being taken on the part of 
the Government to assure the Assembly that the measure was not meant to be 
a step towards Emancipation. Whether intended or not, it was such a step. 
Although the actual Emancipation was opposed point by point, and step by step, 
by the planting body in Jamaica and in England, yet every one knew that it 
was merely a matter of time, the length or shortness of which depended 




RODNEY MONUMENT. SPANISH TOWN. 



entirely on circumstances. Some of these circumstances have been referred to 
above ; they might be strong enough to delay, but were powerless to prevent, 
for when the Trade was suppressed, the System was doomed. 

In 1823 Canning got the House of Commons to pass Resolutions recom- 
mending such reforms in the Code as might prepare the slaves for a participation 
in those civil rights and privileges which were enjoyed by other classes of His 
Majesty's subjects. These Resolutions having been passed, the West Indian 
Governors were directed to carry their provisions into effect. This the Jamaica 
Assembly refused to do, representing that the Slave Code was complete, and 
that the slave population was as happy and comfortable as the labouring classes 
in any part of the world. In other slave-holding colonies the Resolutions of 



LATER HISTORY. 63 

the House of Commons were loyally carried out and, in all likelihood, it was 
the obstinate and perverse resistance of the Jamaica Assembly which hastened 
the day of Freedom. Allowance must perhaps be made for the conduct of 
gentlemen whose interests were, in their own judgment, wrapped up in the 
continuance of slavery, and who foresaw in Emancipation nothing but Ruin 
and Disaster both to themselves and to the colony at large, but it must be 
conceded that an Assembly, so constituted, was utterly unfit to decide impartially 
a question in which they were personally so deeply interested. Naturally 
enough fresh rebellions broke out among the slaves, who had gathered from 
conversation, overheard and repeated, that Emancipation had been agreed on in 
England, but was being withheld in Jamaica. In one of these rebellions 
about this time, property to the value of ^666,977 was destroyed, and the 
proprietors were so impoverished, that the Home Government had to grant 
a loan of ^200,000 to replenish the devastated plantations. It is to be noted 
that almost all risings of slaves were characterised by the burning of crops and 
of planters' houses, fire being almost the only weapon within reach of the insur- 
gents. The wrath of the owners was then poured out on the teachers of religion. 
The violence of the language used and the unfounded nature of the charges 
alleged against missionaries may well be regarded as signs of the consciousness of 
the weakness of the cause. To assert that "ample provision had been made for 
the proper instruction of slaves ' ' was as untrue as it was a ridiculous piece of 
bounce for the Assembly to ' ' threaten the transfer of their allegiance to the 
United States, or even to assert their independence after the manner of their 
continental neighbours." Again we are compelled by want of space to abstain 
from details — details in some cases as disgusting as they are disgraceful. 

We hasten to the end of the struggle. In 1832 the Earl of Mulgrave 
arrived and entered on his memorable Governorship. He at once insisted on 
Canning's Resolutions of 1823 being embodied in the Island legislation. The 
infatuated Assembly again asserted its independence of the British Parliament. 
To allow the House of Commons to legislate was "subversive of the common 
rights and dangerous to the lives and liberties of the colonists." The Assembly 
acknowledged indeed the Supremacy of the Crown, but refused to "admit the 
supremacy of a portion of His Majesty's subjects in the Parent State over 
another portion of these subjects in Jamaica." After this, all other efforts hav- 
ing failed, the Imperial Parliament had no alternative but to pass the Emanci- 
pation Act. This was in May, 1833, when it was enacted that on and after 
the 1st of August, 1834, all slaves should be free, this freedom to take effect 
after an intermediate period of apprenticeship of six years for predials, or field 
labourers, and of four years for domestic servants. The Government proposal 
to advance a loan of ^15,000,000 was altered into a grant of ^'20,000,000, 
as compensation to the slave-holders. In October of the same year, the Island 
Assembly met to consider the Imperial Act, which was ungraciously accepted. 
The old blustering independence was by no means dead, but bad to content 
itself with an impertinent declaration that the action of the Imperial Parlia 
ment was unconstitutional, and involved a policy oi "spoliation which could 



6 4 



LATER HISTORY 



produce nothing but discontent and rebellion." Thus on the ist of August, 
1834, slavery ceased and the apprenticeship system commenced. Pecuniary com- 
pensation, amounting to ,£5,853,975, was paid to Jamaica owners in consid- 
eration of the manumission of 255,290 slaves, while 55,780 slaves, consisting 
of children, old people and runaways, were excluded from the compensation. 
The apprenticeship system was not allowed to run its allotted time, for in 




THE ALTAR, PARISH CHURCH, KINGSTON. 



June, 1838, following, the Legislature in the mother country, though strongly 
protesting against the interference of the Imperial Parliament, it was decided by 
the Jamaica House of Assembly to close the apprenticeship on the ist of August 
in that year. Accordingly, on the ist of August, 1838, absolute and uncondi- 
tional freedom was granted to the slave, or apprentice, population of Jamaica. 

It is not our intention here to narrate the further history of the Colony, 
but we cannot close without a slight review of the progress and development 



LATER HISTORY. 65 

of the emancipated negroes. There have been those who have asserted that there is 
in the African race an ethnological inferiority which makes it unreceptive of 
the highest civilisation. This opinion, however, is necessarily an a priori begging 
of the question and by no means leads logically to the a posteriori conclusion 
that all attempts at civilisation have failed, are failing and must fail. Not 
the most sanguine friend of the negro ever expected that his complete civilisa- 
tion would be effected in a day, or even in a century. Favourable surround- 
ings and sufficient time have been, and are, always and everywhere, essential 
conditions for the growth of the higher civilisation, and those ,who know the 
African race best do not doubt for a moment what the result will be when 
these conditions have been fully realised. We venture to say that there is no 
half-century in the whole history of civilisation, in which greater advancement 
has been made by any race than has been made by the West Indian British 
negroes in the half-century which elapsed in August, 1888, since the complete 
emancipation of their race. Like other human beings, they have their faults, 
many and great, but, in the majority of cases, they are the faults of a child 
rather than the vices of a man ; their virtues, too, may be the virtues of a 
child, docility, affection, simplicity, but who will say that these cannot grow 
into the virtues of a man? Whether ethnologically inferior or not, they started 
fifty years ago, heavily handicapped with the vices which had come down to 
them from the days of the African heathenism of their race, or which were 
incidental to their condition as slaves. They started without money, with little 
or no education, with violent prejudice against them, to compete in the battle 
of life with their former owners, men of means, men of education and influ- 
ence, men holding the reins of government. Now, after the lapse of half a 
century, we find them exercising political power in an intelligent and con- 
tented spirit ; among their number are lawyers, doctors, clergymen and school- 
masters, talented, successful and respected members of their professions , there 
are a few wealthy planters and merchants, and there is a large body of small 
peasant proprietors — without its parallel outside the West Indies — an industrious, 
honest and God-fearing set of men, acquiring and practising year by year 
those habits of steady application, intelligence and self-reliance, which are as 
essential to the black man's success as they are to that of the white. If 
we were asked to point to the results of Emancipation in Jamaica, we would 
do so by means of a contrast. Little more than fifty years ago there were 
more than 300,000 persons of African descent in Jamaica, held in unnatural 
bondage by alien tyrants, perpetually driven by cruelty and hardship to rebel- 
lion, which was futile in all save in increasing the cruelty, deprived of the 
rights of citizenship and often of the privileges of humanity, existing the exist 
ence of cattle rather than living the lives of men and women. Look on that 
picture and now look on this. There are in Jamaica at the present time 
upwards of half a million persons, African by descent, but British subjects by 
birth, speaking the English Language, enjoying English institutions, with an 
English literature and English laws, loyally bound by tics both o( gratitude 
and of expediency to the English Throne. 



SPORT IN JAMAICA. 



'"INHERE are other amusements for the tourist in Jamaica than the feasting of 
•*■ the eye on beautiful scenery. This being a British Colony, first and fore- 
most comes naturally the national British game of Cricket. 

There are several cricket clubs in Kingston and about the Island, but chief 
among them all stands, as it ought to, the Kingston Cricket Club, with a total 
membership of about 300. The Club owns a first-class ground at Sabina Park, 
on the outskirts of Kingston, and numbers among its members all the foremost 
cricketers of the Island. It is constantly being recruited by new blood in the 
shape of officers of the Garrison, fresh from English schools and colleges, and so 
can always put a formidable eleven into the field. Indeed Sabina Park is 
classic ground for Americans; for there in January, 1888, the team of Ameri- 
can cricketers who were making a tour of the West Indies were defeated by the 
picked strength of the Kingston Club. This reverse, however, they atoned 
for, by beating in succession the St. Elizabeth, the Garrison and the Portland Clubs. 

Besides the cricket ground the Club possesses on the same place three 
excellent lawn tennis courts, where play is permitted every day of the week. 
Saturday excepted. 

Friends introduced by members of the Club are cordially welcomed. 

Jamaica, by the way, contributed seven men to the team of cricketers, from 
the West Indies, who visited the United States and Canada in 1886 ; where, 
out of thirteen matches played, they won six and lost five; while two were 
left drawn. 

The premises of the Royal Jamaica Yacht Club are pleasantly situated at 
Rae Town, a suburb of Kingston. Cool, airy rooms are these, close to the beach, 
with the pure sea-breeze blowing through them all day. Billiards and whist are 
provided for and there is a reading room supplied with the latest magazines and 
papers. Several of the members own small yachts, and on every important public 
holiday a regatta is held, that on the Queen's Birthday, the 24th of May, being 
the chief. One also takes place during the visit of the North American and 
West Indian Squadron of the British Fleet about the month of April. 

On all these occasions, among the events are races for fishing canoes, pulling 
and sailing ; and most picturesque is the sight of these frail hollow logs — for they 
are nothing else — tearing along through the waves, if there be a strong breeze, 
with the leech of the one sail trailing in the water half the time, and the half- 
naked crew sitting up on the weather gunwale busily baling out the water that 
is shipped by the bucketful. 



SPORT IN JAMAICA. 



67 



Jamaicans do not yield to the inhabitants of any country in their enthusiasm 
for the sport of racing. 

Every year about a fortnight before Christmas a meeting is held in Kingston, 
which lasts three days, and comprises fourteen or fifteen events. The principal 
prize is the Queen's Purse, which is regulated by a law of the Island, passed by 
a sporting legislature of the old days, but owing to the impetus lately given to 
this pastime by a few energetic young sportsmen, other purses outstrip it in 
value. 

But although that is the case, the winner of the Queen's Purse, a three-mile 
race, is generally regarded as having carried off the "blue riband" of the 




CROSSING A RIVER. 



Jamaica turf. At this meeting compete descendants of some of the best blood to 
be found in the English Stud Book, and the race of thoroughbreds is preserved 
from degeneracy by the constant importation of mares and stallions from England, 
for each of which the Government awards a bounty. 

Those interested in turf matters may derive the most complete information by 
consulting the Jamaica Stud Book recently compiled by Mr. J. T. Palache, of 
Manchester. 

Race meetings are also held at Cumberland Pen, a quarter of an hour from 
Kingston by rail, and at Black River. 

St. Elizabeth, Manchester and St. Ann's arc the parishes in which racers arc 
principally bred. 

The Kingston race-course is a breezy stretch of common to the north of the 



68 



SPORT IN JAMAICA. 



city, commanding a fine view of the Palisadoes and the harbour to the south, 
and looking up northwards to the dim and distant Blue Mountain Peaks, the 
white huts of Newcastle perched on one of the ridges in bold relief, and the 
encircling sweep of the foothills embracing the Liguanea Plain, while the dark 
blue barrier of the Long Mountain bounds the view eastward. It is a noble 
setting, and one that cannot be surpassed by any other race-course in the world. 
The track is oval in shape and just one mile in length. On the western side 
is an iron grand stand, underneath which are bar rooms, weighing rooms and 
other offices, with a railed enclosure in front. Flanking this, a strip of garden 
north and south divides the course from the road. 



iKIS ^&* 




A NATIVE FISHING BOAT. 



Although we have no large game in Jamaica there is plenty of shooting for 
the sportsman who is content with wild -fowl. 

Of game birds we have the blue pigeon, the baldpate, the whitewing, the 
peadove, the whitebelly, the partridge and, last and most delicious of all, the 
ringtail. 

Of these all, with the exception of the whitebelly, partridge and ringtail, 
may be shot from the 26th of July to the last day in February, the open season 
for the three just mentioned dating from the first of September. A gun license 
costs eight shillings. 

The blue pigeon and the baldpate are strong-winged sporting birds that take 
a good deal of shooting when in a hurry. The whitewing is a smaller pigeon 
and flies more in flocks than the others. The peadove is generally to be found 



SPORT IN JAMAICA. 



6 9 



singly or in pairs along the roads or on commons, or in dry river courses, and 
he will carry away more shot for his size than any other bird. The whitebelly 
and the partridge never fly in the open. They haunt thickets in the wood- 
land where the underwood is not too dense. The ringtail is a denizen of the 
high mountains and shooting him is very toilsome work. 

In addition to these, we are visited every winter by large flocks of duck 
and teal, escaping from the rigours of the North American climate. 

The best time for shooting is in the grey dawn of the morning, and for 
a couple of hours after sunrise, for then the birds leave the roost and fly off 
to the feeding grounds in the case of pigeons, and the ducks and teal come 
out of the sedges and disport themselves in the open spaces on the ponds and 
marshes. 



$L«# 






SPANISH TOWN RIVER. 



Exceedingly pleasant are these morning excursions when, starting from your 
home before daylight, you watch the grey morning light flicker up, and see 
the first red streak of the coming sun set aglow the eastern sky, and breathe 
the dewy freshness that everything exhales in this, the sweetest hour of the 
whole day's round. And when you have got into position, how your nerves 
tingle at the cry of "mark" as a plump baldpate comes whizzing along over- 
head; and how satisfying the crack of the gun and the thud that follows it, 
as your first bird falls headlong, a crumpled heap of feathers ! 

Most exciting of all is the alligator hunt. It is difficult for any but the 
practised eye to detect the small portion of his snout and the caverns that 
conceal his eyes, which are all that the beast shows above the surface of the 
water as he paddles warily along ; and it is almost as difficult to distinguish 
him from a log of wood as he lies basking in the sun at noonday, with his 
tail and hind paws in the shallow water and his head and the forepart of the 
body recumbent on the margin of the lagoon or the bank o( the river. 



7° 



SPORT IN JAMAICA. 



A Winchester rifle is a very handy weapon for the slaughter of this beast,, 
and his most vulnerable points are the skull just in the region of the eyes, 
and the body immediately behind the forepaws. But the shot must in either 
case be fair and true. 

This sport, however, should only be undertaken by those who can stand 
exposure to the burning rays of a mid-day sun, and who are proof against 
the noxious exhalations of malarious swamps ; so we will advise the stranger, 
if in search of health, to leave it alone. 

The Blue Mountain forests teem with wild hogs, but the hunting of these 
is a vocation which demands a special training. The professional hog hunters 




ON THE NORTH COAST ROAD. 



are a race of men who are built of nothing but bone and sinew, past fatten- 
ing by any process of diet. They go out armed with muzzle-loading fowling 
pieces of antique and precarious structure, which they charge with a liberal 
allowance of bits of lead and old nails. They are accompanied by a couple 
or two of lean mongrel dogs, contemptible to look at, but of marvellous 
endurance and agility. After camping out for a night, they start early on 
the following morning, and are pretty certain soon to come across fresh hog 
"sign," as they term it. The dogs begin to sniff the air and whimper, and 
after circling round for a minute or two with noses to the ground, dash off 
in one direction followed by the hunter, as they go crashing through the 
underwood, crossing precipitous gorges and splashing through the crystal streams 
that rush down them, hurling themselves down steep mountain sides at aa 



SPORT IN JAMAICA. 7 1 

angle of forty-five degrees, and toiling up an equally abrupt ascent with 
scarcely diminished speed, every foot of it covered with dense forest. Presently 
they give tongue, and the hunter knows that the quarry is sighted, and soon 
an angry grunting tells him that it is brought to bay. Then he yells out 
encouragement to his dogs, calling each by name, and struggling and crashing 
through the forest draws near enough to give the gallant boar his coup de grace. 
Often the dogs get the worst of it ; and the writer of this once joined in a hunt 
which, although five dogs were engaged, resulted in a loss of the game and the 
death of one dog, while another was so sorely injured that his wounds had to be 
stitched up. 

A boar standing two feet six inches at the shoulder is by no means a 
rarity ; and the writer has seen, far in the recesses of the Blue Mountain forests, 
fresh tusk marks on trees and saplings at a height of three feet six inches 
from the ground. 

Wherever the hog is killed there the camp is pitched — water is always near 
by in these wonderful mountains — and, a fire being kindled, the process of 
"jerking" is begun. That is a slow grilling over a wood fire, among the 
embers of which aromatic leaves are cast, while powdered pimento seed and 
salt are sprinkled upon the meat. The dogs are amply rewarded by the offal, 
and soon curl themselves, gorged, as near the fire as they can creep, to enjoy 
a well earned rest. Night comes down, the strong land-breeze rushes seaward 
from the Peaks singing a mournful dirge among the treetops ; the fitful glare of 
the fire throws weird shadows among the tall trees, eclipsing the twinkle of the 
firefly that flits among the leaves ; and all is silence and slumber, save when a 
gaunt figure steals out of the hut, its lean proportions doubly grotesque in 
the uncertain firelight, to watch the progress of the grilling of the prized 
meat. 

If their luck is good they may take three or four hogs in a couple of 
days, as much as they can carry home ; and the meat prepared as above de- 
scribed is readily disposed of at ninepence and sometimes a shilling a pound ; for 
when properly done it is a most toothsome morsel, and perfectly clean and whole- 
some, as the food of these wild hogs consists entirely of roots, berries and fruit, 
and their drink of the purest water. 

Any more health-giving amusement than a few days of hog hunting among 
the Blue Mountain forests it is almost impossible to conceive ; but, as already inti- 
mated, one must be in first-rate condition. 

Votaries of the "gentle art" may also find recreation in the land o\ the 
forest and the stream. And it would indeed be strange if no fish were to 
be found in those waters, from the very abundance of which our Island derives 
its name. 

In the lower reaches of the rivers near the coast, especially where the waters 
form tidal basins, and are impregnated by the sea, some of the most delirious 
fish are to be found ; chief among them the callipeva and the snook. There is 
also a description of mullet that swims in shoals, and is generally taken with a 
cast net. 



7 2 



SPORT IN JAMAICA. 



Higher up, in the pools below the white rush of the rapids and the leap 
of the waterfall among the ferns, our celebrated mountain mullet are to be 
found. Eels and mudfish are also common in all the streams, as well as crayfish 
and prawns. 

But all of these are exceedingly practical creatures, and owing no doubt to 
the lack of brilliant -hued winged insect life which skims across the surface of the 




PALMS IN CASTLETON GARDENS. 



water and forms the food of the fish in more northern regions, they, as a rule, 
decline to be tempted by any fly, however gaudy. Some of our local enthusiasts 
in the art of angling do however succeed in making them take specially prepared 
ones ; but they are easily caught by such bait as Avocado pear, and the berries of 
the sweet wood and other trees. 

The mudfish, eels and crayfish, are caught in bamboo basket-work "pots" laid 



SPORT IN JAMAICA. 



73 



at the bottom of the pools, and baited with something good to eat. A piece of 
cocoanut meat roasted is a never failing allurement. 

There are miles upon miles of crystal rivers among the gorges of the Blue 
Mountains into which no hook has ever been cast. 

Legislation has of late years been found necessary to preserve the river fish 
from the indiscriminate destruction wrought by the negro methods of catching 
them. Chief among these was the construction of a dam across some tolerably 
swift and shallow rapid, into which at intervals funnel-shaped pots were fixed. 
Into these, fish of all sizes were swept by the force of the current, and instantly 
killed, being often terribly mangled. These weirs are now illegal, and the fish 
have been further protected from sportsmen of all sorts and conditions by the estab- 
lishment of a close season. 




PARK LODGE. 



After having been directed to spawn " by Act of Parliament " at three 
different seasons of the year, the period between the 30th of June and the 1st 
of October has now been decreed as that during which they shall multiply and 
increase, unmolested by rod or net or fish-pot. 

In concluding this chapter we would say that in attempting any of the dif- 
ferent varieties of sport which we have touched upon, it will be necessary to 
form acquaintance with some resident of the country who will be able to put you 
"up to the ropes." 

But that, as we have already said, will not prove a difficult matter in a land 
where every decent stranger is taken by the hand and treated as a friend till he 
proves himself the reverse. 



THE BLUE MOUNTAINS OF JAMAICA. 



'""pHE first object that greets the eye of the voyager as he nears the shores of 
- this Island is the mass of dark blue mountain looming up on the horizon ; 
and as he draws nearer and nearer, though clearer and more distinct the shapes 
that peak and ridge may assume, each still retains the tint of deep, deep azure 
that gives its name to the range. 

From its highest point, 7,500 feet above the sea, it throws out branches 
north and south, which now open out into alluvial plain, now descend sheer 
into the girdle of paler blue sea that encircles the Island. 

And from that highest point down to where the foam of the breakers curls 
around its feet, it is majestic, beautiful, fraught with a thousand legends of bygone 
times, and clothed with a thousand different forms of vegetable life in the 
dark woods that re-echo the roar of the streams thundering down each gorge. 

Up on those towering peaks whose heads daily wreathe themselves in a white 
robe of fleecy mist, or don the leaden crown of the thunder-cloud, under the 
yacca and the soapwood is the lair of the wild hog ; and among the branches 
resounds the mournful " lookoo " of the ringtail pigeon, the scream of the parrot 
and the plaintive note of the solitaire. These with the sough of the wind 
among the tree tops and the roar of the torrent in the ravines make nature's 
concert. 

Whole forests of graceful tree-ferns are there ; orchids garnish the gnarled 
limbs that do eternal battle with the wind ; mosses, green and gold and gray, 
clasp the knotted trunks or float pendant in the air. Strange fungi of brilliant 
hues crops out of the ground, where the foot of the hunter falls noiseless on the 
carpet of dead leaves centuries deep. 

Fairy forms of fern overarch the crystal stream and kiss its frothing surface 
with their trailing fronds. Brilliant blossoms nod aloft on the mighty trees and 
blush among the thickets. 

And among all this we may wander for weeks together in silent commune 
with nature, with no chance of seeing a human form, and no fear of encountering 
a dangerous or noxious wild beast or reptile. 

The naturalist will find abundance of new material in the shape of ferns, 
orchids, flowers and fungi ; the lover of the woods for their own sake will be 
able to gratify his passion to the full ; and the practical man in search of land to 
cultivate will surely say: "What magnificent soil! " 

The most striking Peak of the Blue Mountains in approaching Jamaica from 
the eastward is the Sugar-loaf, which rises sharp, distinct and isolated, about 



THE BLUE MOUNTAINS OF JAMAICA. 



75 



forty miles, as the crow flies, from the eastern extremity of the Island. 
Although eminently fitted by its shape and situation to be the highest point 
of the range, by some mistake, it is not, that distinction being enjoyed by the 
most westerly of a cluster of three "humps" rather than Peaks, which are 
connected with the Sugar-loaf by a precipitous ridge of about a mile and a half 
in length. This ridge is in parts so narrow that it is literally possible to sit 
astride of it ; and were it not for the profuse vegetation that covers its sides, it 
would be indeed giddy work to look down them. 

From here westward the main ridge runs along the centre of the Island, 
dividing the Parishes of St. Andrew and St. Mary, and it may be said to 




CASTLETON GARDENS. 



terminate at Stony Hill, ten miles to the north of Kingston. None of the 
other points approach the highest within 2,000 feet, with the exception o\ Sir 
John's Peak on the Government Cinchona Plantation, which is 6.100 feet high. 
This, however, is on an off-shoot trending southwards, and not on the main ridge 
proper. 

These southern and western slopes are largely cultivated and inhabited. Here 
are situated all the principal coffee plantations of this part of the Island. Turning 
east and north we behold only virgin forest, the home of the ringtail and the 
wild hog, rarely trodden by human foot. 

And on both sides shoot out great spurs, which in their turn send forth 

other spurs, which again branch out into numberless ridges, all intersected 



7 6 



THE BLUE MOUNTAINS OF JAMAICA. 



by ravines, so that the aptness of the description of the great Columbus, 
when he likened Jamaica to a crumpled sheet of paper, at once becomes obvious. 

In the hollows of these manifold ridges lie valleys of the richest vegetable soil 
that one can conceive, virgin land, absolutely untouched by cultivation. Down 
each gorge rushes a stream of a purity that puts the very crystal to shame, wasting 
day after day tons upon tons of potential water power. 

Coffee, the natural product of these mountains, grows here to perfection, and 
bears in almost incredibly short time. As an instance of this we may be 
allowed to quote the case of some two hundred acres of virgin soil 
recently planted in coffee by Captain G. G. Taylor, of Moy Hall, a retired 




MONTEGO BAY FROM CHURCH TOWER. 



English officer, who settled in these mountains. Having the necessary capital 
he proceeded to clear and cultivate at an elevation of from 4,000 to 5,000 
feet, in the Parish of St. Thomas, on the southern slope of the Peak. In 
two years some of the coffee actually began to bear ; in four it was all in 
bearing; and now the crops are coming in upon him so thick and fast that 
he was for a time seriously put about for the necessary space for curing and 
storing. He has now commenced clearing some one hundred and fifty acres 
more. When that shall have been completed and planted Moy Hall will be the 
most extensive coffee plantation in Jamaica, and a perfect mine of wealth to the 
fortunate owner. 

And when we remember that the climate of these mountains is such that 
Europeans can labour in the open air without discomfort, and English flowers, 



THE BLUE MOUNTAINS OF JAMAICA. 77 

fruit and vegetables grow easily, it will be seen that here is an El Dorado 
indeed. The principal difficulty is of course the means of transport and locomo- 
tion, for owing to the mountainous character of the country everything has to be 
done on horse or mule-back. 

On the northside of the eastern end of the Blue Mountain range, in the 
Parish of Portland, on the lovely Cuna Cuna Pass to which allusion has already 
been made, lies the Maroon settlement of Moore Town. Every ridge of this 
portion of the range is alive with legends of the Maroon wars ; for here was 
the principal haunt of those bandits of the old, dark days ; and here, far 
back in an almost inaccessible fastness of rocky mountain precipice was their 
stronghold of Nanny Town. 

About the year 1730, "The Maroons had grown so formidable under a 
" very able leader named Cudjoe that it became necessary to increase the 
" military strength of the Colony and to erect extra barracks. Every barrack 
" was provided with a pack of dogs by the Church wardens of the parish to 
" guard against surprises at night and for tracking the enemy in the mountain 
" fastnesses." Nanny was one of the wives of this same Cudjoe, and her name is a 
household word among the Maroons to the present day. She appears to have had 
the reputation of being possessed of supernatural power, and many remarkable feats 
are still ascribed to her. 

Chief among them was the pot which she kept boiling at the junction of 
the two rivers, just below the site of Nanny Town, without any fire under- 
neath, into which the soldiers and militia who were operating against the 
Maroons fell and perished when they looked into it. The whole region about 
Nanny Town teems with legend ; and the belief in the weird stories is not 
confined to negroes alone, as we shall presently show. After defying for years 
all attempts to dislodge them, the Maroons at length succumbed in 1734 to 
the intrepidity and skill of a Captain Stoddart, who cut a path through the 
forest and dragged up two small mountain howitzers. Bringing these to bear 
upon the settlement he created such a panic among the Maroons, who had 
probably never seen or heard of cannon before, that most of those who were 
not actually killed by the discharge hurled themselves over the precipices and 
were dashed to pieces among the adamant rocks below. To quote the words 
of a recent historian: "The spot is now and has been ever since a scene of 
"superstitious awe to the Maroons; it is difficult if not impossible to per- 
" suade one to guide the traveller to the place. The spirits of those slain in the 
4t battle are said to linger there; while it is a fact that men whose personal 
" courage is unquestionable have been bewildered by the strange mysterious noises 
" they hear when camping down for a night. The fears of the Maroons haw 
" affected their own spirits, for the falling stones are no doubt occasioned by the 
" wild hogs rooting among the hills ; and the flapping of the wings of strange 
" low-flying creatures is occasioned by sea-going birds who roost among these might) 
"heights and before dawn hasten away to the ocean below." 

And in truth it is a spot worthy to be the scene of ghost stories. Far 
away from everywhere, in the heart of the Blue Mountain range, the Main 



78 



THE BLUE MOUNTAINS OF JAMAICA. 



Ridge throws out two large spurs that trend northward, and that in their turn, 
as above described, again shoot out cross ridges. Two of these converge at a 
height of 3,700 feet and fall in almost a sheer precipice of adamant rock 900 
feet high into a river that roars along in the narrow gorge at their feet. The 
river is formed by the junction of two others that gush out from behind the 
ridges, and where they meet the eternal beat of the plunging waterfall has 
hollowed out a cauldron in the iron rock, which it keeps full of seething, 
but ice-cold water. Here you have the mysterious " Nanny's Pot." This spot 
can scarcely be surpassed on the face of the earth for wild and romantic 
beauty. On one hand the Stony River, the principal stream, which flows along 




GARDENS, SPANISH TOWN. 



the site of the old stronghold 900 feet above, descends this abyss in three leaps, 
the last of which is over a perfectly perpendicular wall of rock 150 feet high. 
Over this it flows in a silvery cascade that throws broadcast into the air a 
myriad sparkling gems, and forms tiny rainbows wherever its course is broken by 
a slight inequality in the face of the rocky wall. On the other hand the waters 
of the Nanny River come tearing down into Nanny's Pot, keeping the ferns 
and grasses that fringe its sides and nestle in every crevice in a prepetual 
state of agitation by the displacement of the air. On every side tower black 
rocks with surfaces polished by the flow of centuries, glistens and sparkles 
water of crystal purity, and nod and gleam and nestle green and gold mosses, 
ferns and lichens bejewelled by irridescent dew-drops, all shaded by tall forest 
trees between whose leaves the sun casts mottled shadows on the loveliness beneath. 



THE BLUE MOUNTAINS OF JAMAICA. 79 

A paradise on earth in truth ! It is hard to picture in one's mind this silvery 
torrent befouled by bloodstains, these moss-decked boulders besmirched by bat- 
tered brains and mangled limbs, the harmonious silence of this whispering, 
sighing, verdant wilderness, to whose beauty the roar of the cascade tunes cease- 
lessly fitting music, turned to discord by oaths and curses and screams of rage and 
pain, the baying of hounds and the rattle of musketry. 

Captain Stoddart's track was afterwards converted into a permanent road, 
traces of which are still in existence and used by the hog hunters living 
about the villages of Somerset and Rose Hall in the Upper Blue Mountain 
Valley in the Parish of St. Thomas. But they are always careful only to 
approach within a respectful distance of Nanny Town ; while the Maroons confi- 
dently assert that none but themselves can go thither, and persistently refuse to 
believe that the writer of this description depicts the scene from his own per- 
sonal observation. In fact, so great is their dread, that it is beyond question 
that there are now only a very few of the older men of the Moore Town settle- 
ment who know the place, none of the younger generation having ever been near 
it. Should this description and the legend attached to the spot arouse the 
curiosity of any traveller to verify for himself the story of spook and goblin, an 
application to the writer of this will put him in the way of doing it without 
any reference to Maroons. 

So much for the historical and the sentimental aspect of the beautiful Blue 
Mountains, in wandering among which it will be strange if the words of Long- 
fellow do not occur to the lover of nature. 

" This is the forest primeval ; the murmuring cedar and yacca 

" Bearded with moss, and garments green, indistinct in the twilight, 

" Stand like Druids of old with voices sad and prophetic, 

" Stand like harpers hoar with beards that rest on their bosoms. 
********** 

" This is the forest primeval, but where are the hearts that beneath it, 

" Leap like the roe when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman ?" 



THE CLIMATE OF JAMAICA. 



DY the kind permission of the publishers, Messrs. Wm. Wood & Co., New 
*-* York, we reprint the following extracts from an article on the Clima- 
tology of Jamaica, by Dr. Thomas L. Stedman, of New York City, which 
forms part of Buck's " Reference Hand-book of the Medical Sciences." Apart 
from the fact that the opinions here expressed are those of an experienced 
and competent medical man, they have a value of their own, as far as Jamaica 
is concerned, in that they are the deliberate and well-weighed utterances of one 
who is neither a native of, nor a resident in, this colony, and whose words 
may therefore be regarded as being untinged by prejudice and unbiased by 
patriotism. 

Dr. Stedman writes : — It is difficult in a brief article of this nature to 
describe satisfactorily the climate of Jamaica, as owing to the diversity of ele- 
vation and other causes it varies greatly in different parts of the Island ; in 
some districts it is hot, in others temperate and even cool ; in some it is dry, 
others the rainfall is very great ; indeed, the only characteristic common to all 
the varying climates of Jamaica is equability. Thus at the seacoast the average 
temperature is 78 F., (the extreme range for the year being only 35 ), while 
on the mountains at an elevation of between 4,000 and 5,000 feet the mercury 
ranges between 50 and 70 , occasionally falling, on the summit of the highest 
peak and in mid-winter, even to the freezing point. In the accompanying 
charts, compiled from the official figures in the " Hand-book of Jamaica," the 
mean temperature is given for the city of Kingston, and this may be regarded 
as the mean maximum for the entire Island. Unfortunately systematic observa- 
tions of the variations of temperature in the more elevated portions of the 
interior are wanting, but numerous unofficial readings of ordinary thermometers, 
taken with more or less regularity for a number of years by private indi- 
viduals, show that the in-door temperature in places in the interior is on an 
average from 5 to 15 below the figures here given. From June, 1880, to the 
end of the year 1886, the readings of the thermometer were taken at eight 
hour intervals, to wit, at 7 a. m. and at 3 and 11 p. m., but since that time at 
7 a. m. and 3 p. m. only. During the entire period the highest temperature 
observed was 96. i°, recorded on September 12th, 1890, and the lowest was 
56. 7 , recorded on December 4th, 1887. The absolute maxima and minima 
are not given in the first table, but their averages are about four degrees 
above and below the maxima and minima deduced from the daily readings. 

The most striking peculiarity of the climate of Jamaica is its variety com- 



CLIMATE OF JAMAICA. 



8l 



bined with equability. A ride of a few miles into the hills will bring one 
from the torrid zone to the temperate — from an average temperature of nearly 
8o° to one of 65 ° or 70 . But whatever district one may select, whether a 
warm one or a cool one, he will find the temperature very nearly constant, 
the extreme range for any one month being seldom over 25 ° Fahrenheit, 
while that for the entire year, at Kingston, is but 35 °; and in some 
parts of the Island the excursions of the mercury are even more restricted 
than this. As regards humidity, also, there is the same choice of climate open 
to the invalid or the pleasure seeker, who may select a place of residence with 
a humid or a dry atmosphere as suits best his inclinations or the necessities of 




FERRY ON RIO COBRE RIVER. 



the affection from which he suffers. Jamaica indeed enjoys all the advantages 
in respect to uniformity of temperature of island climates in general, while the 
differences in elevation and in exposure to, or protection from the prevailing 
trade winds give to it the pleasing diversity, as regards temperature, humidity, and 
rainfall of the most temperate of continental climates. 

In the first of the meteorological charts the rainfall is given in two 
columns, one for Kingston and the other, the average for the whole Island. 
There is, as a rule, less rain in Kingston than in most of the other parts of 
the Island, the trade winds being drained of their moisture by the mountains 
to the north and east of the city. The heaviest precipitation occurs in the 
Parish of Portland which forms the northeastern extremity of the Island. 



82 



CLIMATE OF JAMAICA. 



< 




u 








< 




£ 




< 




' » 




2? 




O 




H 




CO 




O 


t/5 


A 


2 


* 


rt 


LL 


h 


O 


c/j 


>- 


•3 


H 


M 






U 


fc 


UJ 


< 


n: 


£ 


H 






j 


0^ 


< 
PC 


o 




U- 


w 










CO 


X 


H 


js| 


< 


J3 


X 


•a 


U 


'a 




fl 


, ] 


o 


< 


u 


u 




o 




o 




-J 




o 




c^ 




o 




UJ 




H 





oo 



(•Ajuo uojsSut^) 


M o 


CM 


o 


in 
cm 


CO 

O 




OS 


co 
O 


in 


O 

H 


in 

O^ 


CO 
CM 


o 

CO 




HBJUIBH 


o 


o 


M 


CM 


sO 


o 


CO 


M 


Os 


CO 


O 


CO 
CM 


1 




•ui - d £ 


o 
so 


in 
in 


Os 

XT, 


O 


CO 

vO 


in 


o 

in 


sO 
sO 


OS 

vO 


t> 


sO 
SO 


Os 
in 


•o 


X 






























•ux -b L 


00 


Os 


o 

co 


co 


00 


sO 


CM 


0^ 


o 

oo 


co 


co 
co 


co 

co 


o 

CO 


S8| 


•ui - d £ 


oo 


O 
<* 


CM 
<* 


CO 

in 


CO 

sO 




SO 




co 


8s 


CO 
sO 


sO 


CO 

sO 






























•ui -e L 


CO 

h-l 


o 

co 


M 


co 


CO 


O 
in 


oo 

CO 


>* 


sO 


<* 


sO 
CO 


co 
CM 


Os 
co 




•uiaip 

33IJK 'PUIAV 


OS 


H 


in 


O 


in 


t^ 


r^ 


00 


SO 


oo 


H 


H 


<* 


jad 


CO 

in 


CM 

H 


CO 


O 


CO 

SO 


CM 


vO 


a- 

sO 


H 




co 

SO 


r^ 
r^ 


co 


O a! 




Os 


o 


CM 


I> 


H 


t^ 


H 


r^ 


CM 


^f 


o 


Tf 


oo 


•SSUB^I 


° oo' 


sO 
CM 


oo 

CM 


o 
CM 


CM 


OO 
H 


<* 


sO 

CM 


CM 


CM 


CO 
CM 


in 

CM 


CO 
CM 




in 


sO 


CM 


T 


OS 


CM 


o 


O 


in 


CO 


Os 


ON 


r^ 


•umunuip\[ 


o M 
so 


CO 

sO 


CO 

sO 


oo 
sO 


Os 
vO 


CM 


CM 


O 


O 


o 


sO 

sO 


CO 

sO 


sO 




<fr 


CM 


-* 


H 


O 


On 


H 


r^. 


J^ 


i> 


& 


CO 


in 


•uinuiixBj\[ 


° d 

OS 


o 

Os 


Os 


0> 

OO 


Os 


o 

Os 


vO 

Os 


sO 
O^ 


Os 


c> 


Os 
00 


Os 
CO 


H 
Os 






CO 


co 


**■ 


"*• 


Os 


00 


Tt 


t^ 


o 


H 


CO 


t^ 


o 


C/5 

w 


•aSuB"^ 


° O 

CM 


Os 


co 


Tt 


CO 


CM 


ff 


o 


in 


CO 


Tf 


I> 


O 




in 


On 


<* 


OS 


M 


Os 


o 


in 


rf 


O 


CO 


Tf 


in 


5 


•uinuiiuij\[ 


sO 


vO 


sO 


r^ 


CO 


-* 

r^ 


in 








Os 
sO 


OS 
sO 


l> 




oo 


r^ 


CO 


CO 


C 


r^ 


■* 


CM 


-* 


H 


H 


H 


in 


Pi 

w 


•uinuiixBp\[ 


° o 

CO 


sO 
00 


in 

co 


sO 
00 


00 


oo 


% 


Os 


Os 
co 


CO 


CO 


00 


oo 




vO 


on 


Os 


sO 


CM 


Os 


sO 


sO 


sO 


CM 


sO 


O 


l> 


2 


•ui *d £ 


° CO 
CO 


CO 

00 


CM 

00 


00 


in 

00 


in 

oo 


co 
co 


in 

oo 


in 

00 


CO 

00 


co 

CO 


CO 


oo 


'ui -e L 


<*■ 


sO 


-* 


Os 


M 


O 


sO 


CO 


ON 


sO 


t^ 


00 


H 


° oo 

o 


Os 

sO 


O 






Os 


CO 


sO 


sO 


in 


CM 


OS 
SO 





o 

as 
oo 



•puBisi aqx 



•uo^sSui^f * 



oo 


CM 

sO 


co 
oo 


oo 


o 


co 

00 


CM 

CO 


co 

00 


sO 

OO 


00 


1^ 

o 


o 

sO 


CO 


CM 


CM 


<* 


00 


r^ 


-* 


sO 


sO 


r^ 


in 


in 


sO 
Os 


CM 

co 


ON 


CM 

o 


O 


- 


in 

H 


Os 

q 


On 
in 


Os 

sO 


CM 
CM 


O 
in 



•aSuB"^ 



'UB3p\[ 



aanssaaj -uioaBa 



s I I 



c £* 
3 3 



•XlipiuinH 


CO 


oo 




in 


CO 


co 


sO 


ON 


O 

CO 


co 


oo 


CO 


CO 


sSBjuaojad *pno[3 


On 

cm 


CM 


Os 
CM 


Os 

CO 


sO 
in 


in 


CM 

in 


in 


CM 

sO 


00 

in 




CO 

co 


in 
in 


•uiaip aad S3iip\[ 
'('a *S) P«!M 


co 
so 


CM 




oo 

sO 




in 


CO 

O 


O 
CO 


o 


sO 
in 


co 
in 


in 


Os 
CO 



sO 


O 


Os 


t-^ 


oo 


t>. 


CM 


CM 


>* 


co 


CM 


SO 


M 


On 


Os 


l> 


sO 


"* 


*t 


sO 


sO 


SO 


sO 


CO 


co 


r^ 







oo 


co 


CO 


oo 


•* 


CO 


in 


CM 


co 


H 


*> 


^t 


r^ 


•umuiiuij^ 


o 


vO 
sO 


sO 
sO 


sO 


ON 

sO 


CM 


co 


co 


co 


co 


CM 


O 


co 
sO 


O 






* 


CO 


t^ 


in 


CM 


m 


t-N 


n- 


i> 


ON 


Os 


O 


CO 


•uinuiixBi^ 


o 


sO 
co 


in 

00 


in 

CO 


sO 
CO 


CO 


oo 

00 


ON 

00 


Os 
CO 


ON 

CO 


co 

CO 


CO 
00 


co 


CO 



r^ 


CM 


in 


Os 


ro 


sO 


O 


ON 


Cn 


OS 


O 


Os 



CLIMATE OF JAMAICA. 



83 



There are two principal rainy seasons, namely in May and October, but there 
is usually more or less rain all through the summer months. In the winter months 
in the neighbourhood of Kingston the precipitation is very light. The rain 
usually comes in heavy showers of only a few hours' duration, and the days 
during which the sun does not shine at all are very rare. It is almost always 
possible to predict when the rain is coming as it can be seen, quite a while 




AVENUE OF COTTON TREES. 



before its arrival, advancing from the mountains, giving one ample time to get 
under cover before the downpour begins. This is fortunate for the visitor, as a 
wetting is one of the three things that an unacclimated person in the tropics must 
avoid, the other two being exposure to the direct rays of the noonday sun and to 
the cool night air. 



84 



CLIMATE OF JAMAICA. 



MINERAL SPRINGS OF JAMAICA. 



One Pint Contains : 


Milk River 
Bath. 

(Analysis by 
Sarony & Moore.) 


St. Thomas 
the Apostle. 

(Analysis by 
Bowrey.) 


Jamaica 
Spa. 

(Analysis by 
E. Turner.) 


Silver Hill 
Spring. 

(Analysis by 
Bowi ey. ) 


Manatee 
Bay Spring. 


Carbonate of Sodium 

Carbonate of Iron 

Carbonate of Calcium 

Chloride of Potassium 

Chloride of Magnesium 

Chloride of Sodium 

Chloride of Calcium 

Chloride of Lithium 

Sulphate of Sodium 

Sulphate of Magnesium 

Sulphate of Calcium 

Sulphate of Iron 

Sulphate of Aluminium 

Phosphate of Aluminium .... 

Iodide of Sodium 

Bromide of Sodium 

Bromide of Potassium 

Bromide of Magnesium 

Silicate of Sodium 


Grains. 


Grains. 
0.2I 


Grains. 


Grains. 


Grains. 






traces 




O.866 




I.44 

37.08 

186.93 

I3-50 

traces 
27-93 


O.04 




2.71 





O.I25 




I.48 


4-34 

5 2 -5 2 










I -3 I 


O.79 


2.831 


O.341 

i-745 
1.234 

°-%33 
1.360 








O.62 






2.2IO 
4.168 








traces 
traces 
traces 
traces 

traces 




traces 




















0.45 








0.883 
















Totals v , 


266.88 


3-59 


IO.073 


6.521 


60.88 


Temperature (Fahrenheit) . . . 


92 


130 


t>3° 




Sulphuretted Hydrogen 




Undetermined. 









CLIMATE OF JAMAICA. 



85 



The population of Jamaica, according to the census of 1891, is 639,491, 
an increase of about 60,000 since the census of 1881, and of 130,000 since 
that of 187 1, The capital and chief city is Kingston, the largest and most 
important, as well as the healthiest, seaport town of the British West Indies. 
It is a city of 48,500 inhabitants, situated on gently sloping ground on the 
shores of a large and nearly landlocked harbour. The land on which the city 
lies is a gravel bed, and as it has a slope to the sea of about ninety feet to the 
mile the natural drainage is excellent. The water supply is drawn from two 
rivers at a distance of several miles from the city, and as regards freedom from 
contamination is above reproach. 




THE SQUARE, MAN DEVI LLE. 



The diseases for the climatic treatment of which Jamacia is particularly well 
suited are bronchitis, fibroid phthisis, incipient pulmonary tuberculosis, catarrhal 
affections of the respiratory passages, Bright's disease, rheumatism, various forms 
of dyspepsia, and nervous prostration. All parts of the Island arc naturally not 
suitable for the treatment of all these varied affections, but for each one a 
locality exists where the patient can find the climate especially adapted to the 
necessities of his particular disease. Respiratory affections especially do well in this 
mild and equable climate, as may be judged from the records of one o\ the lite 
insurance companies doing business on the Island, which show that the company 
lost but one life from diseases of the respiratory organs (bronchitis) during a 
period of thirty-five years. These do well in almost any part of the Island. 



86 



CLIMATE OF JAMAICA. 



although there is even here a choice, as cases with scanty expectoration are most 
benefited in those districts where there is considerable moisture in the atmosphere, 
while those in which there is free or even profuse secretion are more quickly re- 
lieved in the neighbourhood of Kingston where the humidity of the air is at a 
minimum. Patients with nervous prostration receive more benefit from a stay 
near the seashore than they do in the uplands, and the same is in a measure 
true of dyspeptics, especially of those in whom the gastric trouble is partly ner- 
vous in its origin. Sufferers from Bright 's disease do well, as a rule, in all parts 
of the Island except possibly in the most elevated regions where in the winter 
months the thermometer is apt to fall a little too low after the sun goes 
down, and where, especially on the northern slope, there is at times a little too 
much rain to be agreeable. The same remarks will apply also in the case of 




RIVERHEAD, STEWART TOWN. 



rheumatic patients, but the latter would do well to take a course of the waters 
at one of the numerous mineral springs, of which a few words may be said in 
closing this article. 

There are several medicinal springs in Jamaica, some thermal and others 
cold, which possess therapeutic properties of no little value, and which are 
deserving of more careful study by balneologists than they have hitherto re- 
ceived. The most important of these, or at least the best known and the only 
ones at which passable accommodations for visitors are as yet provided, are the 
Bath of St. Thomas the Apostle, about a mile from the town of Bath in the 
Parish of St. Thomas, the Jamaica Spa, at Silver Hill in St. Andrew's Parish, 
and the Milk River Bath, at Vere in the Parish of Clarendon. The first 
of these is a thermal sulphur, the second a chalybeate, and the third a thermal 
saline water. 

The accompanying table, extracted from a brochure on the "Mineral Springs 



CLIMATE OF JAMAICA, 



87 



of Jamaica" written by the Hon. J. C. Phillippo, M. D., shows the results of 
analyses of these three and of two other springs on the Island. All of these 
are quite easily accessible from Kingston. 

The limits of this article will not permit of a detailed description of 
each of these springs, but the subjoined analyses will suffice to indicate their 
general characteristics and to suggest their therapeutic application. The waters of 
one or the other of the springs are of value, taken internally and applied in the 
form of baths, in the treatment of rheumatism, gout, chronic bronchitis, catarrhal 
conditions of the stomach and intestines, constipation from abdominal plethora, 
hepatic and other congestions of the abdominal viscera, amenorrhoea, anaemia 
and chlorosis, various forms of skin diseases, and chronic malarial affections. 
The Government has made grants from time to time for the improvement and 
care of the buildings at these baths, but there is yet much to be desired in the 
matter of cuisine, bathing facilities, attendance, and other things that con- 
tribute to the comfort and entertainment of the invalid. In the absence of 
these desiderata they still possess the great advantage that they may be visited 
in the winter season when the more pretentious and better equipped spas in 
Europe and the United States are closed. 

The best months in which to visit Jamaica are November to April in- 
clusive, as these are the coolest and dryest of the year, but one accustomed 
to the fierce summer heats of our northern cities would find a grateful change 
in the hills of Jamaica even in mid-summer. 

To the above opinion we may add, that a fair criterion of the healthiness, 
or otherwise, of the climate of Jamaica may be obtained from a study of the 
medico-military statistics of the colony. These are exhaustively treated of in an 
expansion of a paper read before the Jamaica Branch of the British Medical 
Association by the late Brigade-Surgeon S. E. Maunsell. 

Beginning at 181 7, about the time when a first attempt was made to com- 
pile statistics of disease and to classify under various heads the causes of non- 
efficiency among soldiers, Dr. Maunsell, in a statistical summary, shows, amongst 
others, the following remarkable figures : 



1817— 1836 

1838— 1847 
1848— 1859 
i860— 1869 



YEARS. 



Ratio 


PER 


1,000, 




Admissions to 
Hospital. 




Fatal Cases. 


1812.55 






[2I.3 


1526.66 






63.07 


1 141.69 






3 2 -70 


994.76 






21.2 5 



During the first of the above-mentioned lour periods the soldiers were over- 
crowded in the enervating heat of the plains; sanitation was almost unknown. 
ventilation was unheeded, water was collected from the roots o! the barracks 



83 



CLIMATE OF JAMAICA. 



whence it drained into tanks, it was never filtered and was too deficient in 
quantity to admit of ordinary cleanliness. And the other accompaniments of 
barrack-life were of the same type. 

During the second period the strength of the military forces stationed in 
Jamaica was much reduced ; hence there was more barrack-room accommodation 
and consequently a decreased mortality. 

The reduction in the years 1848- 185 9 may largely be accounted for by 
the removal, first started indeed in 1842, of the European troops to Newcastle, 
4,000 feet above the unhealthy stations and encampments on the plains. 

The improvement in the decade, i860- 1869, would possibly have been more 
marked but for an outbreak of fever in 1867. This is a convenient place in 
which to pause briefly in our statistics, because one result of the 1867 epidemic 
was a War Office Commission, the giving effect to the recommendations of which 
has almost revolutionised the reputation of Jamaica as an unhealthy military 
station. This Commission plainly showed that in the zone, where yellow fever 
is endemic, an entire dependence on elevation as an absolute and certain 
safeguard was utterly insufficient, if it were accompanied by a neglect of other 
reasonable precautions which should be taken in every climate. 

The above-quoted figures show that half a century ago three soldiers out 
of four stationed in Jamaica were twice a year in the hospital, and that twelve 
per cent, died every year. Other statistics, which need not be tabulated here, 
show that more than five-sixths of these fatal cases were caused by fevers, that 
on an average every soldier had twenty-three days of sickness during each year, 
each attack lasting on an average thirteen and one-half days. 

We now turn to the military figures for the next two decades and we 
find: 



YEARS. 



Average 
Annual Deaths. 



Ratio of Deaths 

per 1,000 Admissions 

to Hospital. 



1870 1879 



1550 1. 



13-77 
II.36 



In the last-named of these years, 1889, the deaths from all causes were eight 
per thousand and from fevers nil. 

Statistics such as these can have but one meaning which is that, when proper 
sanitary precautions are taken and due care is paid to personal hygiene, whether 
among military men or among civilians, the climate of Jamaica is as healthy as 
that of any part of the world. Admitting the possibility of contracting, 
through carelessness or otherwise, some tropical fever, this possibility is more 
than counter-balanced by the immunity from other sicknesses and ailments which 
have their origin, not in evil conditions and surroundings which man can 
remedy, but in the bleak cold of winter, in frost and ice, and snow and blizzard, 
against which there is for the delicate constitution no escape but flight. 



STATISTICAL INFORMATION ABOUT JAMAICA. 



TO AND FROM JAMAICA. 

HpHE Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, with its fleet of transatlantic and 
A intercolonial ships puts Jamaica in fortnightly communication with Great 
Britain and with the West India Islands. 

The Steamers of this Company afford favourable opportunities to persons 
desirous of taking trips for novelty, pleasure, or health. 

The various routes include calls at places where the scenery is of great 
beauty and grandeur, and where the climate is warm and mild at the time 
when severe weather is experienced in more northerly latitudes. 

The vessels of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company are fitted with the 
electric light throughout and all modern improvements — Ladies' Saloons. Smoking 
Rooms, etc.. etc. 

Passengers making pleasure trips in the West Indies can travel intercolonially 
by the Company's Steamers by paying a fixed charge of 25- per day for each 
day they are on board, while at sea or in port, provided the time is not less 
than 14 consecutive days. 

The transatlatic ships calling every alternate Friday are : 

Atrato, ------ 5140 registered tonnage. 

Orinoco, - 4434 " " 

Don. - - - - - -4028 -• " 

Para, 4028 

Medway, ------ 3669 " " 

The West India and Pacific Steamship Company's steamers are despatched 
once a month from Liverpool, calling en route at St. Thomas, Port-au-Prince, 
Kingston and New Orleans. The Caribbean line runs direct between London 
and Jamaica ; the Pickford & Black's West Indies Steamship Line connects 
Jamaica with Halifax, Bermuda and Turks Island ; while the Clyde line affords 
communication between Jamaica, London and Glasgow. 

The main means of passenger communication between Kingston and the 
United States is by the Atlas Steamship Company, the New York offices of 
which are at 21 and 22 State street. 

The fleet of the Atlas Line are all iron and steel screw steamships, con- 
structed under the superintendence of the surveyors to English Lloyds and in 
accordance with the requirements of the British Board of Trade. 



92 STATISTICAL INFORMATION ABOUT JAMAICA. 

The following particulars of the steamship "Adirondack" will fully describe 
the vessels comprising the Company's fleet as a great similarity exists in their 
construction, etc., etc. 

The steel steamship "Adirondack," built in Glasgow by Aitken & Mansel, 
with engines and machinery by John and James Thomson, forms the latest 
addition to the fleet of the Atlas Steamship Company. The steamship is 310 
feet long, and has an advantage for the comfort of passengers in possessing a 
beam of thirty-nine feet. The hull and framing are constructed of steel of a 
greater thickness than that required by the exacting requirements of the highest 
class in Lloyds. As an additional strength, she has two steel decks, the upper 
sheathed with wood, thus constituting the vessel into a steel girder of immense 
strength. For a considerable portion of the vessel's length the bottom is 
double, so that in the event of the outside hull being punctured the inner 
plating will effectually prevent water entering the main and vital portions of 
the vessel. She possesses fine lines, a sharp bow with clean entrance and a 
graceful, well moulded run. She has two masts, is fore and aft rigged, provided with 
"leg-of-mutton " sails, that are easily and readily handled. The hull is divided into 
eight distinct compartments by water-tight iron bulkheads, placed at intervals 
across the ship. The engines are of what is known as the triple expansion 
type, having three cylinders, any two of which can be worked independently 
in the event of a break-down. They are twenty-five inches by forty-two inches, 
representing 1,500 indicated horse-power. The boilers are of steel, three in 
number, and have Weir's patent feed heaters and patent feed evaporators. In 
order to avoid the disagreeable smells that usually emanate from the engine- 
room and hold, as well as to secure the position of least motion and best 
ventilation, the entire passenger accommodation has been located at the centre 
of the ship, forward of the engines, and above the main deck. The state-rooms, 
being on the upper deck, thus secure an all-around ventilation, with the ports so 
far above the water line as to seldom require closing ; they are also unusually 
large and airy. The saloon is a steel house built over the state-rooms, with hand- 
somely decorated stairways leading to the apartment. 

Windows on all sides admit both air and light, in addition to enhanced 
facilities for pure air through a patent ventilating apparatus fixed in the ceiling. 
There are ample accommodations for over sixty first-class passengers. The saloon 
and state-rooms are lighted by electricity, each state-room being provided with a 
knob by which the light can be controlled at pleasure. 

The Jamaica Coastal Service is performed by the Atlas Company's Branch 
Steamers " Arden " and " Adula " — the latter a recent addition to the Atlas 
fleet ; both vessels were specially designed for the Island trade and are provided 
with all the latest improvements. The passenger accommodation is situated on 
the upper deck forward of the engines, the state-rooms being particularly large 
and airy and the saloons commodious and well appointed. 

These two steamers, one of which is under contract to the Colonial 
Government, afford most attractive trips to tourists and give the opportunity 
of visiting some thirteen ports, each one surpassing the one preceding it in 



STATISTICAL INFORMATION ABOUT JAMAICA. 



93 



loveliness and beauty of situation ; in fact, no more delightful voyage could 
possibly be suggested than this around the Island of Jamaica. It occupies but 
four days, through waters always smooth ; and every few hours a fresh port is 
made where passengers may land, returning to the steamer, or, if they prefer 
it, journeying overland to meet her at another port. Frequent opportunities 
are also afforded in the same manner for the return overland to Kingston on 
horseback, or by conveyances which are always to be hired at reasonable prices 
at the various ports of call. 




KING'S HOUSE AND GROUNDS. 



SUGGESTED EXCURSIONS FROM KINGSTON. 



One Day.— To Hope Gardens; Gordon Town; Cane River Falls: Castle- 
ton Gardens ; Port Henderson ; Spanish Town ; Newcastle. 

Two Days. — To Bog Walk, Linstead and Ewarton, sleeping at Rio Cobre 
Hotel, Spanish Town ; Bath ; Mandeville. 

Three Days. — To Mandeville; Moneague. 

In all cases arrangements should be made beforehand both for lodging ac- 
commodation at hotel or boarding-house and for being met by buggy or car- 
riage at the nearest railway station. 

For excursions of more than three days' duration the tourist will do well 
to avail himself of the facilities offered by the Atlas Steamship Company, or by 



94 



STATISTICAL INFORMATION ABOUT JAMAICA. 



following any portion of the route round the Island which has been sketched 
elsewhere in these pages. 

ACREAGE AND CULTIVATION. 

The acreage of Jamaica consists in all of 3,692,587 acres. Of this in round 
figures 3,000,000 acres are available for cultivation of various kinds, the culti- 
vation varying with the elevation above the sea-level of the latter number of 
acres, and nearly two-thirds, as shown by the returns of the revenue depart- 
ment, are in the possession of individuals or trusts. Thus there is room for fresh 
enterprise and increased colonisation. 




LINSTEAD MARKET PLACE. 



Varieties of Cultivation. — Almost every kind of tropical and sub-tropical 
fruits has been grown successfully in Jamaica. The cultivation of many of 
these, such as tea, has not yet reached a point either in quantity or in quality, 
that it can be regarded as a marketable commodity. This may be largely due 
to want of capital to oppose existing competition or perhaps to the fact that 
other markets are more readily found for better-known Jamaica products. 

The principal productions are coffee, pimento, ginger, cinchona on higher 
elevations ; sugar, cacao ; oranges, limes, tobacco, nutmegs, cocoanuts, pine-apples, 
bananas and other fruits on the lower. It has been successfully shown that 
Jamaica fruits can be preserved and made into jams and jellies, but as yet only a 
beginning has been made in the export of this species of manufacture. Fibre- 



STATISTICAL INFORMATION ABOUT JAMAICA. 



95 



yielding plants will grow in many places now apparently uncultivatable. As a 
winter vegetable garden for New York and other large American cities, Jamaica 
has hardly been seriously experimented on. While nature has done much, 
man has done little. Sugar and rum, once almost the only commodities 
largely exported, have been in recent years left behind by bananas, and there is 
no reason why other fruit industries, many of them requiring less capital and 
involving less risk than bananas, should not hold prominent rank in foreign 
markets. Industry, care and personal supervision of work bring their reward in 
the rich soil of Jamaica to an extent not exceeded in any other agricultural 
country. 




GOING TO MARKET, JAMAICA. 



POPULATION. 



The estimated population of Jamaica at the present time is 660,000. An 
unusually large proportion of the people who in other countries and under other 
circumstances would form the labouring classes, occupy their own small settle- 
ments. This is partly owing to the facilities for acquiring laud, partly to the 
cheapness of the bare necessaries of life and partly to man's natural love oi 
independence and perhaps of indolence. Another reason, however, may be and 
probably is, the low rate of wages which obtains throughout the Island. Conse- 
quently labour — and especially good, skilled labour — is not to be had in anv 
great abundance. This is an evil the remedy ot which is too obvious to need 
mentioning here. 



77° 



MAP OF 
THE ISLAND OF 



IAIA1CA 

PREPARED FOR 

JAMAICA HAH B BOOK 

HARRISON 




AUthl Mam. food, are Carriage Mead* except that from. Gar-Am. Tovm 
to Newcastle, arid, that from Tyre to Catheath. . 

Proposed JloJIroajLs ^ _ ^ <""* ■* *. 



longitude West from Gree 



JWrniasWimT 



